WASHINGTON, Oct 15 — A typhoon in the Philippines and flooding in Brazil. Twice in less than a year, British energy giant Shell has been the target of a new type of lawsuit seeking to make polluters pay part of the cost of specific extreme weather events.

“We chose Shell because it’s an emblematic company. It meets all the criteria,” Thales Miola, a lawyer for the Brazilian NGO Instituto Preservar, told AFP.

On tomorrow, the organisation and federal prosecutors jointly filed a lawsuit against Shell’s subsidiary in South America’s largest country.

They are seeking the equivalent of US$108 million (RM441 million) in compensation for catastrophic flooding in southern Brazil in 2024. The disaster killed nearly 200 people, displaced half a million and caused widespread destruction.