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When we wrote about the five ways Big Oil is trying to stop us last year, we told you about lawsuits, jailings, corporate capture of climate talks, violence against frontline defenders, and a misinformation machine in overdrive. Since then, the attacks have escalated. But so have we. Here’s the latest — and why, despite everything, we are more defiant than ever.

The $345 Million SLAPP Against Greenpeace

Let’s pick up where we left off i.e. on the most brazen legal attack on the climate movement in recent memory.

In March 2025, a North Dakota (United States) jury ruled that Greenpeace must pay Energy Transfer (ET), the corporation behind the destructive Dakota Access Pipeline, a staggering US$660 million. It was a number designed to do one thing: destroy one of the most powerful environmental organizations in the world, and send a message to every activist watching.

This is what’s known as a SLAPP: a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPPs are notorious lawsuits that are not about winning in court. They are about burying nonprofits and activists in legal fees, pushing them toward bankruptcy, and ultimately silencing dissent. The absurdity of this particular case speaks for itself. Greenpeace is being held liable for peacefully protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose water supply is threatened by the pipeline’s crossing of the Missouri River upstream from their reservation. 

To this day, the Dakota Access Pipeline does not have full legal authority to operate and was previously delayed by decisions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Yet Greenpeace has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to Energy Transfer. A proportion of this penalty stems from something as simple as co-signing a letter — alongside 500 other groups — that echoed findings published in United Nations reports.

Last week, the court upheld parts of that verdict, and ordered Greenpeace to pay ET US$345 million. Although the total was reduced from USD$660 million after the judge dismissed several elements of the original jury award, it still is an enormous, unjust sum with no sound basis in law.  

This is Big Oil’s playbook: when you can’t win the argument, weaponize the law.  Speaking out is not a crime. But it is being treated like one.

This is everyone’s fight

SLAPPs are not just a threat to Greenpeace. They are a threat to free speech, democratic debate, and public participation itself. Every day, journalists, activists, human rights defenders and even everyday people face lawsuits simply for doing their jobs: exposing wrongdoing, standing up for communities, telling the truth. These legal attacks are designed to protect profits, drain time, money, and morale, to scare people into silence and to push critical voices out of public life.

When corporations can sue environmental groups into oblivion for signing a letter, for standing with Indigenous communities, for peaceful protest — every one of us who has ever spoken out against power is at risk. Public participation is the backbone of democracy. We need laws that protect those who speak truth to power, and we need to enforce them.

Fighting back

Greenpeace is not backing down, and we’re supporting them. They are:

• appealing the judgment in the North Dakota Supreme Court, and pushing for a new trial in the United States. 
• And in Europe, Greenpeace International has taken the fight directly to Energy Transfer — filing the first ever test case of the EU’s new anti-SLAPP directive in a Dutch court in Amsterdam. The EU anti-SLAPP directive was designed to stop exactly this kind of foreign corporate interference, and this case will help determine whether that protection has teeth. The next hearing is scheduled for April 2026

Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years. But the wins are already stacking up! Greenpeace France defeated TotalEnergies’ SLAPP in March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forced Shell to abandon its SLAPP entirely in December 2024. In Paris, France’s first ever climate trial against a multinational oil company is now underway, with a ruling against TotalEnergies expected in June — another sign that the legal tide is turning.

Big Oil is not invincible! When we stand together, we win.

 

The playbook doesn’t stop at lawsuits

Lawsuits aren’t the only weapon in Big Oil’s arsenal. While they fight critics in court, they are running an equally aggressive campaign to control the narrative outside of it. A report from December 2025 examining over 300 climate-related advertisements from the world’s four biggest oil and gas companies between 2000 and 2025 found a consistent pattern: for 25 years, these corporations have been deceptively portraying themselves as climate leaders while simultaneously expanding fossil fuel production and failing to meaningfully cut their emissions. This is greenwashing on an industrial scale — and it has been deliberate, sustained, and calculated. In fact, just this month, after devastating floods in Mozambique affected over 700,000 people, TotalEnergies announced a donation of food and hygiene kits worth around $500,000 — less than one dollar per person affected. Meanwhile, the same company is leading a $20 billion LNG gas project in northern Mozambique expected to produce up to 4.5 billion tonnes of carbon pollution over its lifetime — more than the entire EU emits in a year. This is plain and simple climate impunity, dressed up as generosity. Profits are privatised; the damage is borne by ordinary people.

What you can do right now

Big Oil wants us divided, drained, and silent as they continue padding their wallets and destroying our planet, health and livelihoods. Here is how we refuse:

• Stand with Greenpeace. Their legal fight is our fight. Support them as they appeal. Every voice, every donation, every shared post tells Energy Transfer that intimidation is backfiring. Sign this open letter. 
• Spread the truth. The Dakota Access Pipeline has no legal authority to operate. Five hundred organizations signed that letter. Share these facts. Disrupt their narrative. #TimeToResist 
• Keep showing up. In the streets, online, at town halls, at the ballot box. The climate movement has faced setbacks before. We have always come back stronger.
• Demand governments make polluters pay: Higher taxes on polluting fossil fuel giants will help keep their power in check, unlock billions for the energy transition, and help the most vulnerable communities bear the cost of climate destruction they did nothing to cause. Sign the petition. Call your representative. Tell them: no more free passes for Big Oil.