Extreme Temperature Diary- Saturday December 13th, 2025/Main Topic: Shell Facing First UK Legal Claim Over Climate Impacts of Fossil Fuels – Guy On Climate
Dear Diary. As the 2020s have been rolling along, we have been witnessing more and more lawsuits brought against fossil fuel companies. That’s good, but we need more. Also, those climate lawsuits need to be won, then payouts to litigants need to be paid promptly, but will they? The legal process in courts worldwide sometimes takes years, but at least lawsuits can morally hold fossil fuel corporations to account, shining a light on them to the public as climate changing severe weather events continue to grow worse.
This week we are learning that in the United Kingdom the first climate lawsuit has been filed against the giant Shell corporation. Here are more details from BBC News:
Shell facing first UK legal claim over climate impacts of fossil fuels
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... — Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T21:56:40.467Z
Shell facing first UK legal claim over climate impact of fossil fuels
Shell facing first UK legal claim over climate impacts of fossil fuelsWednesday 12/10/2025
Matt McGrath Environment correspondent
 Getty Images
Victims of a deadly typhoon in the Philippines have filed a legal claim against oil and gas company Shell in the UK courts, seeking compensation for what they say is the company’s role in making the storm more severe.
Around 400 people were killed and millions of homes hit when Typhoon Rai slammed into parts of the Philippines just before Christmas in 2021.
Now a group of survivors are for the first time taking legal action against the UK’s largest oil company, arguing that it had a role in making the typhoon more likely and more damaging.
Shell says the claim is “baseless”, as is a suggestion the company had unique knowledge that carbon emissions drove climate change.
Typhoon Rai, known locally as Odette, was the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines in 2021.
With winds gusting at up to 170mph (270km/h), it destroyed around 2,000 buildings, displaced hundreds of thousands of people – including Trixy Elle and her family.
She was a fish vendor on Batasan island when the storm hit, forcing her from her home, barely escaping with her life.
“So we have to swim in the middle of big waves, heavy rains, strong winds,” she told BBC News from the Philippines.
“That’s why my father said that we will hold our hands together, if we survive, we survive, but if we will die, we will die together.”
Trixy is now part of the group of 103 individuals that has filed a claim that’s believed to be the first case of its kind against a UK major producer of oil and gas.
 A family take shelter in the wake of Typhoon Rai which left hundreds of thousands of people homeless
In a letter sent to Shell before the claim was filed at court, the legal team for the survivors says the case is being brought before the UK courts as that is where Shell is domiciled – but that it will apply the law of the Philippines as that is where the damage occurred.
The letter argues that Shell is responsible for 2% of historical global greenhouse gases, as calculated by the Carbon Majors database of oil and gas production.
The company has “materially contributed” to human driven climate change, the letter says, that made the Typhoon more likely and more severe.
The survivors’ group further claims that Shell has a “history of climate misinformation,” and has known since 1965 that fossil fuels were the primary cause of climate change.
“Instead of changing their industry, they still do their business,” said Trixy Elle.
“It’s very clear that they choose profit over the people. They choose money over the planet.”
 Shell’s global headquarters is in London which is why the claim has been lodged at a UK court
Shell denies that their production of oil and gas contributed to this individual typhoon, and they also deny any unique knowledge of climate change that they kept to themselves.
“This is a baseless claim, and it will not help tackle climate change or reduce emissions,” a Shell spokesperson said in a statement to BBC News.
“The suggestion that Shell had unique knowledge about climate change is simply not true. The issue and how to tackle it has been part of public discussion and scientific research for many decades.”
The case is being supported by several environmental campaign groups who argue that developments in science make it now far easier to attribute individual extreme weather events to climate change and allows researchers to say how much of an influence emissions of warming gases had on a heatwave or storm.
But proving, to the satisfaction of a court, that damages done to individuals by extreme weather events are due to the actions of specific fossil fuel producers may be a challenge.
“It’s traditionally a high bar, but both the science and the law have lowered that bar significantly in recent years,” says Harj Narulla, a barrister specialising in climate law and litigation who is not connected with the case.
“This is certainly a test case, but it’s not the first case of its kind. So this will be the first time that UK courts will be satisfying themselves about the nature of all of that attribution science from a factual perspective.”
The experience in other jurisdictions is mixed.
In recent years efforts to bring cases against major oil and gas producers in the United States have often failed.
In Europe campaigners in the Netherlands won a major case against Shell in 2021 with the courts ordering Shell to cut its absolute carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, including those emissions that come from the use of its products.
But that ruling was overturned on appeal last year.
There was no legal basis for a specific cuts target, the court ruled, but it also reaffirmed Shell’s duty to mitigate dangerous climate change through its policies.
The UK claim has now been filed at the Royal Courts of Justice, but this is just the first step in the case brought by the Filippino survivors with more detailed particulars expected by the middle of next year.
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Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Just for the record
We really should start to take global warming seriously otherwise we are toast...
Or do you think the physics of a water planet know mercy?
#Climate #Earth — (@umsonst.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T10:24:11.998Z
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Washington State Issues Evacuation Orders for 100,000 Amid Floods #Climate — Climate Tracker (@climate.skyfleet.blue) 2025-12-12T12:57:14.733Z
‘A shift no country can ignore’: where global emissions stand, 10 years after the Paris #climate agreement
www.theguardian.com/environment/... — Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T15:33:55.803Z
An analysis of 700,000+ climate change papers found that the five most climate-vulnerable countries produced 0.04% of them. US, China, Uk, Germany, Australia, meanwhile, account for 52%. — Dave Levitan (@davelevitan.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T22:45:06.751Z
@michaelwara.bsky.social says:
“The only solutions are going to involve really intensive engineering. There’s going to be places where Marin County has the money to defend and places where it’s not going to be able to defend.” Cost: up to $1.9 billion for San Rafael (pop. 60,000). — Dr. Jeff Masters (@drjeffmasters.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T15:52:39.237Z
This is what the climate crisis looks like. Our beautiful homes, luxurious cars, and money has no value on a dead planet.
There is no time to wait. #ActOnClimate
#ClimateEmergency #climate #energy #renewables — Mike Hudema (@mikehudema.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T19:07:03.006Z
Mind numbing Arctic Outbreak this weekend across the Eastern US! Windchills down to -40°F!! After a warm weekend, even #Florida will get in on the Arctic action by Monday morning.
#cold #winter #chicago — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T02:37:03.483Z
BRUTAL. This looks excruciating. #Midwest #cold #fyp #chicago #arctic — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T22:45:00.168Z
Watch This: Rare & Dramatic 50° feels like temperature change across #Florida Monday morning! This happens as the edge of the next Arctic blast “wedges” into the state. Gusty NE winds will drive readings deep into the 20s in places like Tallahassee and Gainesville… 1/ — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T14:31:32.176Z
This has been a striking, and strikingly persistent, pattern for much of December: sharp cold toward the Midwest and Northeast, and unusual warmth from the Rockies westward. (But not in central California, where unusually chilly air and "tule fog" have been in place for days). — Bob Henson (@bhensonweather.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T20:41:51.881Z
What’s going on in #California right now is fascinating and provides a quick/ easy meteorology lesson.
For weeks we’ve had a warm-stagnant upper level high overhead. The result: Air doesn’t move and mix vertically… 1/ — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T21:57:08.424Z
In an ironic twist - after tormenting much of the East with a super cold start to December - the Grinch pulls the rug out just before it could manifest into a White Christmas! 🎄 ❄️
Warm Christmas for many? Such a Grinch thing to do.
Here’s hoping the forecast changes. — Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T17:55:45.592Z
🚨 Yesterday the Albanese government opened a huge new area of Victoria and Lutruwita / Tasmania’s oceans to seismic blasting & gas drilling—right next to World Heritage coastline. 🔥 New gas is a climate disaster. Next to World Heritage coastline it’s a double disaster.
#oilandgas #auspol #climate — Wilderness Society (@wilderness.org.au) 2025-12-12T01:12:23.397Z
Battery costs have fallen sharply over the past two years. Steep drop in 2024 costs followed by further cost drops 2025, pushing storage within reach for dispatchable solar
www.pv-magazine.com/2025/12/12/b... — Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T12:16:24.829Z
— Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T15:18:47.810Z
FR Tribunal has stopped the expansion of the Bugey nuclear plant, citing inadequate ecological assessment and legal flaws
franceinenglish.com/p/administra... — Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T12:14:35.077Z
FANTASTIC FIND
A living birch, which has lost two of its trunks to logging, has several groups of these large mushrooms, growing at eye level and way, way up. 🧵
#fungifriends #fungi #forest #forestfriends #nature #naturesfriends #forestfriday #photography #biodiversity #mushrooms #climate #birches — Charlie Alice Raya (@charlie-alice-raya.org) 2025-12-12T22:45:37.892Z
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