Ministério Público Federal and Instituto Preservar v. Shell Brasil Petróleo Ltda.

On October 9, 2026, Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and Instituto Preservar filed a public civil action against Shell Brasil seeking environmental and climate civil liability for a proportionate share of the material and collective moral harm caused by the April–May 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul. The complaint constructs a three-stage causal chain through attribution science: anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions caused global warming; emissions associated with the Shell corporate group account for approximately 2.02% of cumulative global fossil-fuel and cement CO₂ emissions from 1854 through 2024; and anthropogenic climate change made the 2024 extreme-rainfall event about twice as likely and approximately 12% more intense. The plaintiffs argue that climate harm is a dimension of environmental harm governed by Brazil’s strict environmental-liability regime, including the polluter-pays principle, liability of indirect polluters, full reparation, and collective moral damages.

They ask the court to declare the causal link and Shell’s environmental-climate liability; award an initially estimated R$270,518,400 in material damages and the same amount in collective moral damages; direct the funds exclusively to recovery, reconstruction, adaptation, disaster prevention, and affected communities in Rio Grande do Sul; require an independently selected technical advisory body for affected communities at Shell’s expense; and reverse the burden of proof. The total amount in controversy is R$541,036,800. The complaint relies expressly on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Advisory Opinion OC-32/25, the International Court of Justice’s climate advisory opinion, Carbon Majors data, event-attribution research, and comparative climate litigation.