San Francisco Frontiers - Brazil prosecutors sue Shell for $108 mn over deadly 2024 floods

Torrential rains sparked historic flooding in southern Brazil in April and May of that year, leaving nearly 200 people dead, 500,000 more displaced and massive damages.

According to the lawsuit, Shell's liability should match its contribution to global warming -- estimated at two percent of historical global greenhouse gas emissions.

"This civil suit is aimed at holding the defendant company accountable, in terms of its environmental and climate-related responsibilities, for collective material and moral damages stemming from the extreme weather event that hit Rio Grande do Sul state," public prosecutors said, according to court documents seen by AFP.

They said the British energy giant should be held responsible because of its past and current greenhouse gas emissions associated with exploration, production and sale of fossil fuels.

The $108 million in compensation accounts for both material and moral damages.

The filing of a new climate-related suit by Brazilian prosecutors -- in conjunction with Instituto Preservar, a Brazilian NGO -- marks a new phase in the global battle in the courts against oil giants.

"This is the first time a national public prosecutor is suing an oil major for a climate disaster," Maria Antonia Tigre, the director of global climate litigation at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told AFP.

For Thales Miola, a lawyer at Instituto Preservar, "the costs of climate damage should not fall solely on society and on those who lost everything in the tragedy."

"Major polluters, who contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and to climate change, must also answer for the losses they help cause," Miola said in a press release.

- A shift toward the courts -

NGOs and lawyers around the world have filed claims in recent years to try to require a major polluter to compensate people harmed or threatened by climate change, wherever they live, in proportion to the company's greenhouse gas emissions.

German courts moved toward that principle last year in a case brought by Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya against energy company RWE.

Although they rejected his claim for compensation, the courts left the door open to holding major emitters liable for climate-related payments.

Similar lawsuits are now pending in several countries, including cases brought by Philippine victims of Typhoon Odette against Shell in the UK, residents of Indonesia's Pari island against cement maker Holcim in Switzerland, and Pakistani farmers affected by 2022 floods against RWE and Heidelberg Materials in Germany.

There have also been setbacks.

Climate groups have lost lawsuits against oil companies in the United States.

And in New Zealand, the government changed the law to block a lawsuit brought by Maori activist Mike Smith against six domestic companies, but he has vowed to continue the fight.

H.Reyes--SFF