Court throws out Peruvian farmer's climate lawsuit against energy giant
A German court ruled Wednesday that one of the country's largest energy giants is not liable for alleged harm caused by climate change in Peru, throwing out a decade-long claim by a farmer who fears his mountainside home in the Andes could be destroyed by melted glacier ice.
The court found that RWE, the utility firm, was not obliged to contribute to the costs of protecting Huaraz, a city of some 120,000 people in the foothills of the Andes, from the risk of catastrophic flooding made more likely by climate change. The case was brought by one of its residents, farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya.
The judgment marks a blow for climate campaigners who had sought to use the German court system to establish a legal precedent for making energy firms liable for the costs of mitigating the impact of climate change globally.
RWE, which has never operated in Peru, had argued that individual emitters could not be held responsible for 'universally rooted' processes like climate change. In a statement Wednesday, the energy firm welcomed the ruling, which found the risk of flooding to Luicano Lliuya's property was too low to merit damages. RWE said that if granted, the claim would have had 'unforeseeable consequences for Germany as an industrial location, because ultimately claims could be asserted against any German company for damage caused by climate change anywhere in the world.'
In their case, Luciano Lliuya's attorneys cited an analysis that found RWE's mines and power stations were responsible for 0.47 percent of all emissions produced by people in the industrial era. As a result, they claimed that the energy firm was liable to pay around $20,000 toward the building of a protective drainage system for Huaraz, about 0.47 percent of its projected total cost.
The city is at risk of catastrophic flooding from Laguna Palcacocha, a pool of melted glacier water that has swelled in recent decades as the nearby Palcaraju glacier melts. According to an attribution study published in the journal Nature Geoscience in 2021, the melting of the Nevado Palcaraju glacier would be virtually impossible in a world without climate change.
At any moment, the lake could burst its banks and send a deluge of nearly 2 million cubic meters of water toward Huaraz below. About 50,000 people live on the banks of the Quilcay River, a high hazard zone where the flood could be strong enough to sweep away small brick and adobe homes. In 1941, a glacial lake outburst flood killed one-third of the city's population.
The Palcacocha drainage project is intended to improve lake's existing flood defenses and protect thousands of Huaraz homes — including Luciano Lliuya's — from the risk of a repeat.
In a statement Wednesday, Luicano Lliuya said that while he was disappointed by the ruling, he believes the judgment opened the door to holding polluters legally responsible for the harm they have caused. 'My case has shifted the global conversation about what justice means in an era of the climate crisis, and that makes me proud,' he said.
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