Oliver Conway

And ultimately, if you listen to the environmental groups who are backing these claimants, kick off a series of similar lawsuits against other companies in the future.

And what does Shell have to say about this?

Shell's called the claim baseless.

It's pretty clear they're going to be fighting this quite hard in the court.

Their argument, essentially, is that their production of oil and gas didn't contribute to this individual typhoon.

I mean, the Philippines does get a lot of powerful typhoons.

And that ultimately, Olly, is what the court will need to be convinced of.

Another important claim in this lawsuit is that Shell has known for decades, so since the 1960s in fact, that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver of human-led climate change, but instead, for a long time, chose to hide this information and misinform the public and the wider industry.

Now again, Shell says that's simply not true, that it had any kind of unique knowledge about climate change.

It doesn't dispute the fact that burning fossil fuels contributes...

to climate change.

I think that's not up for debate at all.

But Shell says that everyone's known this for a long time and the debate has been how to tackle it.

And that's been a public one that's been going on for many years, decades even.

It's going to be interesting to see, you know, which way the court may be convinced on this or not.

Yeah, scientists say it's difficult to link cause and effect to particular storms in regards to climate change.

But what could be the impact of this case?

Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, they're one of them backing this claim.

They're hoping that if it's successful, then they can basically sue other big fossil fuel companies.

And you do see these sort of test cases popping up now and again.