Sustainable Energy & Infrastructure Litigation Updates — December 2025

On November 18, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction pending appeal that stayed the enforcement of one of California’s two mandatory climate disclosure laws: S.B. 261, which mandates the disclosure of climate-related financial risk, and which had been scheduled to enter into effect as of January 1, 2026. However, the Ninth Circuit declined to enjoin S.B. 253, which mandates the disclosure of Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions. The Ninth Circuit may have chosen not to enjoin this law since it will not enter into effect (as per the latest information from the California Air Resources Board, the regulator responsible for enforcement) until August 10, 2026, which is likely after the Ninth Circuit will issue a decision on the merits of the pending appeal (thus making an injunction pending appeal unnecessary).

In effect, this injunction preserves the status quo until the Ninth Circuit has the opportunity to evaluate whether California’s mandatory climate disclosure regime passes legal muster. Significantly, this move by the Ninth Circuit renders it less likely that the US Supreme Court will intervene in this dispute until the Ninth Circuit has an opportunity to rule on the merits of the underlying appeal, as the threat of immediate harm through the disclosure obligation has been alleviated by the Ninth Circuit’s injunction pending appeal. Nonetheless, companies still face the risk of an immediate disclosure requirement following a ruling by the Ninth Circuit, so the burden to prepare for the compliance obligation — albeit not the disclosure requirement itself — remains present. Still, the immediate January 1, 2026 deadline to disclose climate-related financial risk for companies doing business in California (for those with annual revenues exceeding $500 million) is no longer in effect.

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