The era of corporate climate denial is over but in courts around the world the big names have shifted strategy

While the US government continues to call climate change a hoax and attack the science, in courtrooms from The Hague to Honolulu, fossil fuel companies are taking a different approach. Shell, Chevron, RWE and TotalEnergies all accept that climate change is real, human-caused and serious. The era of corporate climate denial, at least in legal proceedings, is largely over.

What has replaced it is a more nuanced position: accepting the science of climate change while contesting their responsibility for it.