Philippines – Climate- Science.press

Shell Oil Sued Over “Causing Typhoon” in Philippines in Major Test Case

A massive ‘lawfare’ claim backed by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth has been filed in the UK’s Royal Courts of Justice claiming that Shell Oil played a part in a devastating typhoon in the Philippines in 2021. At the centre of the case is a Green Blob-funded weather ‘attribution’ study that claims Typhoon Rai, also known as Odette, was made significantly worse due to human caused climate change. The study has been recently published and is heavily linked to academic institutions funded by the green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham.

Satellite image of Typhoon Rai making landfall in the Philippines, with geographical markers highlighting Manila and Davao.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

Rescue workers in orange vests assist people stranded in floodwaters, with a partially submerged boat visible amid rushing water.

The action has been filed by a number of survivors of the Philippines storm that caused considerable damage in parts of the Philippines in late 2021. It claims financial compensation as well as “injunctive relief to curb Shell’s destructive activities”.

Typhoons are not unknown in this part of the world, but recent evidence suggests there has been little change in the overall trend over the last 100 years. Numbers and intensity of storms rise and fall over shorter periods but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has seen little evidence that humans have recently caused the trend to get worse. In fact, a recent paper published in Nature found “robust declining trends in the annual number of tropical cyclones at global and regional scales during the 20th century”. The paper was titled: ‘Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming.’

The key attribution paper in the Shell case uses a standard technique measuring the outputs of two computer model simulations. This imagines an atmosphere where humans have emitted carbon dioxide by burning hydrocarbons and one where there is no such contribution. To say the process is controversial would be an understatement. It cannot count as scientific work under the Popperian principle since the results are unable to be tested and are unfalsifiable. The field of weather attribution is dedicated to grabbing media headlines and providing ammunition for lawfare cases.

If the Shell case ever gets to court, it will be interesting to see how weather attribution claims stand up to forensic cross examination. Shell could call on the services of the distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jr., who has noted that he can think of no other area of research “where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by research in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits”. Pielke suggests that the rise of individual event attribution studies coincides with frustration that the IPCC cannot say that the frequency and intensity of most types of extreme weather have increased in an era where humans are using oil and gas. In his view, they offer “comfort and support” to those focused on climate advocacy.

The Typhoon Rai attribution paper is written by four academics from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London. Both universities have financial links with Jeremy Grantham. The fourth author Nathan Sparks works at the Grantham Institute at Imperial. The Philippines’ Category 5 Cyclone Rai caused widespread damage across the southern-central part of the country, with compounding effects of extreme rainfall, high winds and storm surges. It is claimed that a “multi-method, multi-model probabilistic event attribution” found that wind speeds of landfalling storms like Rai had become 70% more likely due to humans emitting ‘greenhouse’ gases. Looking of course at you in particular Shell Oil. Lawsuits and lawyers thrive on precise numbers so “multi-method probabilistic” modelling along with “compound event attribution theory” produces the conclusion that human-caused climate change “has likely more than doubled the likelihood of a compound event like Typhoon Rai”.

As noted, it will be interesting to see how all this modelling stands up to examination in a civil law court. The less charitable might note that this probabilistic guff would not last five minutes in a criminal court where hard and conclusive evidence, such as DNA, fingerprints, confessions and observations, is generally considered a basic requirement to secure a conviction.

The Rai civil lawsuit has been filed under Philippines tort law in the London Courts due to the domicile of Shell in the UK. The case is backed by three large activist groups who are thought to be covering the legal and organisational costs. Greenpeace is providing advocacy, research and mobilisation support, while Legal Rights and Natural Resources Centre, the local member of Friends of the Earth International, is said to be handling local legal coordination matters. Also involved is a local grouping under the banner of Philippine Movement for Climate Justice. Shell is accused of being responsible for producing 2% of global fossil fuel emissions that have directly contributed to human-caused atmospheric warming. For good measure, Shell is said to have known about the alleged risks for decades, a common claim made by activists that will no doubt be tested in any future court hearing. The mainstream rules around ‘settled’ climate science, where discussion is effectively banned in the interests of promoting the Net Zero fantasy, are unlikely to apply in the London High Court.

The Shell litigation is an important test case. Activists have spent years seeking financial support and recognition for their pseudoscientific claims that they can measure a chaotic and non-linear atmosphere. Such is the level of refinement and expertise that they claim, many people believe they are able to pin the blame for individual weather events on humans. Most mainstream media hype their alchemistic pronouncements without question, but it will be interesting to see how the attribution claims stand up to the attention of m’Learned Friends in a combative court forum.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.

NGOs Help Philippine Typhoon Victims to Launch a Climate Lawsuit

NGOs should be helping these people put their lives back together. Instead, they appear to be encouraging wild fantasies of a big payday.

Satellite image of the Philippines affected by Typhoon Rai, showing the typhoon's eye near Davao and Manila labeled on the map.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

NGOs should be helping these people put their lives back together. Instead, they appear to be encouraging wild fantasies of a big payday.

Filipino typhoon survivors sue Shell over climate change

London (AFP) – Survivors of a deadly 2021 typhoon in the Philippines have filed a lawsuit against British oil giant Shell, seeking financial compensation for climate-related devastation, three NGOs supporting them said Thursday.

Issued on: 11/12/2025 – 08:02 Modified: 11/12/2025 – 08:00

Typhoon Rai struck the southern and central regions of the Philippines in December 2021, toppling power lines and trees and unleashing deadly floods that killed over 400 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

The lawsuit on behalf of 103 survivors argues Shell’s carbon emissions contributed to climate change, impacting Philippine communities.

Trixy Elle, a plaintiff from a fishing community whose home and four boats were swept away in the typhoon, told AFP the lawsuit was about getting justice.

“Island residents like us contribute only a small percentage of pollution. But who gets the short stick? The poor like us,” said the 34-year-old, who is still paying off high-interest loans she needed to rebuild.

“I am not speaking only for my community but for all Filipinos who experience the effects of climate crises,” Elle said, adding that her now 13-year-old son still suffers from trauma caused by the storm.

…Read more: https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20251211-filipino-typhoon-survivors-sue-shell-over-climate-change

NGOs could simply ask companies like Shell to assist with rebuilding these communities. Companies like Shell spend substantial money every year helping people in need.

Instead, they’ve convinced these people to waste time and effort on a high-risk lawsuit, which even if they win will take many years to resolve.

Big, Beautiful Coal Here for Many More Years Despite ‘Green’ Demonization

As a boy growing up beside India’s railway lines, I found magic in the metallic thunder of passing trains. Now and then, freight cars piled high with black coal would roll by. That same evening, our lights would flicker out.

From Watts Up With That?

By Vijay Jayaraj

There, I’d sit still in the hush of a powerless night, staring into the warm dark, wondering why electricity was so elusive. Hours earlier, the answer had clattered past: coal, in plain sight, yet out of reach.

At the time, India lacked its currently extensive coal mining and power generation facilities. Today, however, coal is the backbone of energy production, supplying over 70% of India’s electricity. The dark evenings of my childhood have been brightened.

Other developing countries have learned from China and India how coal jump-starts economies and lifts millions from poverty. Now, they too line up for their share of the fuel that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

Global coal production reached an all-time high of nearly 9 billion metric tons in 2024. Chinese and Indian output continued to grow, and Indonesia set export records.

India is on track to burn twice as much coal as the U.S. and Europe put together – possibly within the year – while China has already surged ahead, consuming 30% more coal than every other nation combined.

Growing by almost 12% in 2024, India’s production is projected to climb to over 1 billion metric tons in 2025 – a harvest that would exceed America’s peak in 2008.

This week, Adani Power invested $2 billion in a 1,500-megawatt, ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh to supply one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

Coal shipments to Southeast Asia are on a steady climb, with nations like Vietnam and the Philippines leading the demand. Annual imports across the region are projected to grow nearly 3%.

Rising production of South American crude steel will increase demand for metallurgical coal, which is converted to the coke required to make steel from iron. The continent produced 3.7 million metric tons of steel in March, up 6.5 percent from a year earlier, with Brazil contributing nearly 80% of the total.

With African energy production on the rise, South Africa remains the continent’s largest coal producer and consumer. State power utility Eskom uses coal to generate more than 70% of its electricity and recently added 800 megawatts of capacity to help stabilize the power grid.

Zambia and Zimbabwe are restarting coal-fired plants and advancing new coal projects to improve their energy security amidst power crises. Zambia’s largest coal mine, Maamba Collieries, is slated for an expansion.

Even the U.K. government, while still parading its “net zero” credentials, is, nonetheless, procuring coking coal to keep British Steel alive in Scunthorpe. The U.K. may import the fuel from Japan or Australia, presumably because mining coal from Britain’s indigenous deposits is more scandalous than the hypocrisy of its absurd climate policy.

In the U.S., President Trump has prioritized coal under a new executive order, fast-tracking projects like Warrior Met’s Blue Creek mine in Alabama, which will boost metallurgical coal output by 60% for export markets. Additionally, the U.S. approved the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana, enabling nearly 40 million tons of coal to be mined over the next 16 years.

The global coal-fired power fleet increased by less than 19 gigawatts in 2024, the lowest net rise in two decades. This is due to retirement of coal plants in Europe and the transition to more modern coal plants in Asia. Coal prices, too, have been sluggish in recent months.

Nevertheless, sustained growth and demand in the existing coal markets of Asia and the emerging markets of Africa and Southeast Asia will continue to propel production and consumption across the world. In 2024, coal accounted for 35% of total power generation globally, the highest among all sources of energy generation.

Coal is expected to dominate the energy sector for at least three more decades, barring a disruption by rapid innovation that would enable its economical displacement. Similarly, the mineral will continue to play a crucial role in iron and steel production absent development of a viable alternative.

Predictions to the contrary are just so much hot air – largely from those most averse to a warming atmosphere.

This commentary was first published at Daily Caller on June 16, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.