The complaint, which is the first of its kind in the world, is being brought forward by 20 typhoon survivors and advocates and 14 non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace.
The group is demanding an investigation into the top 50 investor-owned fossil fuel companies and their shared responsibility for climate impacts they say “endanger people’s lives and livelihoods, as well as that of future generations”
“We demand justice. Climate change has taken our homes and our loved ones,” Typhoon Rammasun survivor Elma Reyes said.
“These powerful corporations must be called to account for the impact of their business activities.”
The groups cite a study by Climate Change Accountability Institute director Dr Richard Heede that identified 90 big polluters comprising of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies and cement producers.
Heede’s study tracked anthropogenic CO2 emissions from 1751 to 2013, and concluded the 50 biggest companies contributed 315 gigatonnes equivalent of CO2 or 21.72% of global industrial emissions through 2010.
“Half the emissions have occurred since 1986, demonstrating the increasing speed with which fossil fuels are being burned,” Greenpeace said.
Among the carbon majors mentioned in the study were Xstrata, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell and Total.
Of the 90 companies, 83 are involved in the production of oil, gas and coal, while seven are among the world’s largest cement entities.
The legal action is being supported by Amnesty International, Avaaz, Business and Human Rights Resources Centre, Climate Justice Programme, the Center for International Environmental Law, EarthRights International, International Trade Union Confederation and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“We pray that the CHR heed the demand to recommend to policymakers and legislators to develop and adopt effective accountability mechanisms that victims of climate change can easily access,” Caritas Philippines spokesperson Edwin Gariguez said.
“Inspired by Pope Francis, the church will support this Philippine climate change and human rights complaint and will continue to serve as a strong ally in the struggle for a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually rich world that the Pope and the broader climate movement are fighting for.
Greenpeace legal advisor Zelda Soriano said people could use the legal system to hold governments to account and demand climate action.
The groups submitting the complaint are calling for an investigation to be launched this year that can be used to establish a moral and legal precedent that big polluters can be held responsible for current and threatened human rights infringements resulting from fossil fuel products.
They say companies have benefited financially with knowledge of the harms associated with their products.
ExxonMobil, for example, knew in the 1970s that it was contributing to climate change.
Newly discovered documents show that the corporation's own research scientists warned top executives that atmospheric CO2 was increasing and that the burning of fossil fuels was to blame as early as 1977.
In 1978, the Exxon researchers warned that a doubling of CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2-3 degrees Celsius and would have a major impact on the company’s core business.
“Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical,” one scientist wrote in an internal document."
The groups submitting the complaint all agree that now is the time for the big polluters to bear responsibility for preventing climate harm.
Given that many of the respondents are abroad, the CHR will focus on the companies operating in the Philippines first.
