# Rejecting Climate Policy Is Not a Crime 

Activists are signaling support for the fringe legal theory of “climate homicide,” the notion that certain people and companies should be held criminally responsible for deaths related to climate change.

January 15, 2026 • Commentary 

By [Travis Fisher](https://www.cato.org/people/travis-fisher) 

This article appeared on [*Real Clear Energy*](https://realclearenergy.com) on January 15, 2026.

It was bound to happen. Activists are signaling [support](https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/08/taking-the-climate-killers-to-court/) for the fringe legal theory of “climate homicide,” the notion that certain people and companies should be held criminally responsible for deaths related to climate change. Although it is factually backward and legally dubious, some [academics](https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-homicide-architects-pitch-theory-to-prosecutors/) and the shrinking minority of the “climate alarmed” are taking it seriously.

No one else should, as it would become the latest, gravest threat to human prosperity.

Between the Bill Gates [memo](https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate) in October, which elevated human welfare over draconian climate policy, and the [lackluster](https://www.wri.org/insights/cop30-outcomes-next-steps) November COP30 meeting in Brazil, climate activists had a tough year in 2025. Months prior, [rational](https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/why-i-stopped-being-a-climate-catastrophist) environmentalists endorsed economic growth over “net zero,” not because they deny climate change, but because they believe human well-being is the ultimate measure of good public policy.

Well-reasoned arguments for climate mitigation policy, such as calls for a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, had [failed](https://www.npr.org/2010/04/26/126280761/how-cap-and-trade-was-trashed) for decades. Then came the calls for fossil-fuel divestment, likening climate change to [apartheid](https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/07/divestment-delusion-travis-fisher/). Spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on climate change seemed like a winning strategy when the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022, but it was reversed this year when lawmakers realized just how [expensive](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/budgetary-cost-inflation-reduction-acts-energy-subsidies) it would be.

The failure of climate mitigation policy makes perfect sense based on [polling](https://epic.uchicago.edu/news/new-epic-ap-norc-poll-americans-express-higher-levels-of-concern-over-ais-environmental-impact-than-that-of-cryptocurrencies-meat-production-or-air-travel/). Everyone wants to live in a safe and clean climate, but when people are asked how much they are willing to pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, more than half of the respondents say no to paying as little as one dollar per month.

Because there are solid reasons to oppose costly climate policy, further attempts by activists to change Americans’ minds, whether through documentaries, blocking traffic, or vandalizing art museums, face steep odds. More likely, they’ll backfire.

Therefore, litigation is the last refuge of climate alarmists. They won a procedural suit in Montana, largely because the state government chose not to challenge the [incorrect](https://www.cato.org/blog/parsing-factual-errors-montana-climate-ruling-part-two) arguments advanced by the plaintiffs. Similar civil suits are being floated at the [international](https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165475) level and across the United States. There’s even a [database](https://www.climatecasechart.com/) to keep them all straight. If civil suits fail, and they very well may, climate extremists will have to pivot once again.

Enter climate [homicide](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/21/fossil-fuel-companies-homicide-climate-deaths-lawsuit). Academic [papers](https://journals.law.harvard.edu/elr/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2024/04/02_HLE_48_1_Arkush-Braman.pdf) by David Arkush and Donald Braman have explored the idea for years. And it just might get traction now that activists are fresh out of rational options. Indeed, in the lead-up to COP30, UN Secretary General António Guterres hinted that he’s escalating from “[global boiling](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/27/scientists-july-world-hottest-month-record-climate-temperatures)” to climate homicide, arguing that the absence of stringent climate mitigation policy is a “[moral failure and deadly negligence](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn51pn74l23o).”

Activists are signaling support for the fringe legal theory of “climate homicide,” the notion that certain people and companies should be held criminally responsible for deaths related to climate change.

But he can’t get his story straight. The Secretary General also [claims](https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statements/2025-07-22/secretary-generals-remarks-climate-action-moment-of-opportunity-supercharging-the-clean-energy-age-delivered-scroll-down-for-all-french?_gl=1%2A1ihbbmf%2A_ga%2ANTM1Mjk5Nzk5LjE3NjQwMTE2OTY.%2A_ga_TK9BQL5X7Z%2AczE3NjQwMTE2OTUkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjQwMTE2OTUkajYwJGwwJGgw%2A_ga_S5EKZKSB78%2AczE3NjQwMTE2OTYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjQwMTE4OTckajQ4JGwwJGgw) that the “clean energy future is inevitable” because “solar and wind can be deployed faster, cheaper and more flexibly than fossil fuels ever could.” So when it’s time to hype the costs of climate change, Guterres relies on reports that [project](https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21228.doc.htm) a fossil fuel future, but when it’s time to hype the benefits of renewables, he [insists](https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statements/2025-07-22/secretary-generals-remarks-climate-action-moment-of-opportunity-supercharging-the-clean-energy-age-delivered-scroll-down-for-all-french?_gl=1%2A1ihbbmf%2A_ga%2ANTM1Mjk5Nzk5LjE3NjQwMTE2OTY.%2A_ga_TK9BQL5X7Z%2AczE3NjQwMTE2OTUkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjQwMTE2OTUkajYwJGwwJGgw%2A_ga_S5EKZKSB78%2AczE3NjQwMTE2OTYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjQwMTE4OTckajQ4JGwwJGgw) “fossil fuels are running out of road.” Both claims can’t be correct.

There’s another major hiccup regarding allegations of climate homicide: The widespread use of hydrocarbon fuels has made human beings safer than ever from climate change. Climate-related [deaths](https://humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-deaths-2/) are at an all-time low, falling to just 1% of deaths in the earliest days of the data set, which stretches back to the 1920s.

If we were to take seriously any discussion of criminal climate negligence, we would have to start with the false premise that the climate is getting more dangerous for human beings. Since the exact opposite is true, climate homicide cases should be thrown out with extreme prejudice.

Imagine if proponents of the “climate homicide” theory were to succeed. Would those of us who use fossil fuels daily be prosecuted? Perhaps executives of fossil fuel companies? Just like the divestment movement, the climate homicide crowd is getting the moral issue exactly backward. Starving humanity of essential energy would be far more lethal.

The real threat of climate homicide comes not from the rational environmentalists seeking to improve human lives, but from alarmists calling for an end to the hydrocarbon-based energy that makes modern life possible.

##### About the Author 

[![Travis Fisher - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-09/travis-fisher-cropped.jpg?itok=wFuUAHy-)](/people/travis-fisher) 

##### [Travis Fisher](/people/travis-fisher)

Director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/ts_fisher)