Latest news with #Huaraz
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
How One Farmer's Climate Lawsuit Could Lead To A Win For The Planet
17 March 2025, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamm: Peruvian mountain farmer and mountain guide Saul ... More Luciano Lliuya (r) arrives at the Higher Regional Court for the hearing of his climate lawsuit against energy company RWE and talks to journalists. Geoscientists and structural engineers appointed by the court are to present their expert opinions. The issue at stake is the danger posed to the plaintiff's house in South America by a tidal wave or mudslide. The plaintiff accuses the German company of being partly responsible for climate change due to the CO2 emissions it produces. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa (Photo by Rolf Vennenbernd/picture alliance via Getty Images) A farmer's climate lawsuit is a win for the planet. Recently, a German court quietly ended a landmark legal battle that had spanned nearly a decade. In Lliuya v. RWE, a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, sued Germany's largest utility company, RWE, over its historic carbon emissions and the resulting impact on his hometown of Huaraz. Though the Higher Regional Court of Hamm ruled against Lliuya, stating that he had not sufficiently demonstrated imminent danger or direct causation, the case represents something far more significant than a legal loss. It marks another pivotal moment in the evolving global discourse on climate accountability, climate justice, and how courts will address the issue of liability in an era of planetary risk. Lliuya first went to court in 2015. He claimed that glacial melt driven by global warming had swollen a lake above his town, threatening a catastrophic flood. He asked RWE, a company responsible for roughly 0.47% of global historical emissions, to pay for protective measures proportional to its emissions. It was a novel request, but one that resonated with growing legal and ethical arguments about polluters' responsibilities to communities on the frontlines of climate change. HUARAZ, PERU - MAY 23: Saul Luciano Lliuya (41), Peruvian farmer and mountain guide who filed a ... More lawsuit against the German electricity consortium RWE, visits the lake Palcacocha in Huaraz, Peru on May 23, 2022. (Photo by Angela Ponce for The Washington Post via Getty Images) In many ways, this case echoed others around the world, including youth-led lawsuits like Held v. Montana. In that case, a state court ruled that Montana had violated young residents' constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by promoting fossil fuel development. While Lliuya v. RWE did not secure a similar victory, it represents a similar trend of individuals and communities using the legal system to seek remedy and accountability in the face of government inaction and corporate pollution. Climate litigation of this kind presents unique legal challenges. How do courts trace global emissions back to individual corporations? Can one company be held liable for incremental damage when the crisis is collective? The court in Lliuya v. RWE essentially said no, at least not with the evidence presented. But the fact that the case advanced as far as it did is noteworthy. Most climate lawsuits do not survive procedural hurdles, let alone reach a stage where climate science and corporate responsibility are discussed in depth. This case forced a European court to consider whether a corporation could be liable for climate-related damage across borders. Even without a favorable ruling, the legal framework it helped shape may influence other jurisdictions. Just as U.S. courts are beginning to take youth-led climate lawsuits more seriously, international courts may one day revisit Lliuya's argument with a different outcome. The decision may be a disappointment to many climate advocates, but it is not a dead end. It is a milestone in what some legal scholars call "strategic litigation.' This is the use of the legal system not just to win individual cases, but to influence policy, raise awareness, and build momentum for broader change. The RWE decision also arrives at a moment of heightened scrutiny for corporate climate commitments. Even as some fossil fuel companies tout their decarbonization plans, many continue to invest heavily in fossil infrastructure. Policymakers and regulators now have an opportunity to step in where courts have hesitated. The legal questions raised by Lliuya's lawsuit could inform new laws or treaties addressing transnational environmental harm. As the world approaches COP30 and new rounds of climate finance negotiations, Lliuya's effort may serve as a moral and rhetorical guidepost. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm may have ruled against Saúl Luciano Lliuya, but the larger movement for corporate climate accountability has gained steam. As Lliuya's case moved along in Peru, activists in Canada pushed for stronger climate disclosure standards. The legislative measure failed, but the Canadian courts issued a ruling in favor of youth climate litigants alleging government responsibility for climate change impacts. Both groups vowed to fight on, 'We were significantly disappointed with Canada's first-ever sustainability disclosure standards released last month. These new regulations are a welcome step forward, but they still fail to respond to crucial problems for our specific context in Canada. In 2025, we will continue the fight for strong sustainable finance regulation that meets international standards.' If nothing else, Lliuya's decade-long fight reminds us that the climate crisis is personal, political, and legal. Each lawsuit, whether it ends in victory or not, helps redraw the boundaries of responsibility. In that sense, this case was never just about a glacial lake in Peru. It was about charting new paths to justice on a warming planet.
Reuters
6 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Explainer: Why a Peruvian farmer's court loss may be a win for climate justice
May 28 (Reuters) - A decade-long court battle between a Peruvian farmer and German energy giant RWE ( opens new tab over the company's global emissions and its impact on his hometown finally came to an end on Wednesday. The court threw out the case without the possibility of appeal. Despite that, the farmer, his lawyers and environmentalists are hailing the ruling as an unprecedented victory for climate cases that could spur similar lawsuits. The highland Peruvian city of Huaraz is at risk from a glacial lake outburst flood as glacial melt has caused the volume of Lake Palcacocha to increase by at least 34 times since 1970, requiring investment in dams and drainage structures. Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya sued German energy giant RWE, claiming it should pay for 0.5% of the flood defenses since the company emitted 0.5% of global emissions since the industrial revolution despite not having a physical presence in Peru. The amount would have come out to about $17,500. The court decision was based on calculating the risk Lliuya's home faced from flooding. An expert opinion found that the 30-year damage risk to the plaintiff's house was 1%. The court deemed this was not enough to take the case further. While Lliuya's house's risk didn't pass the threshold, the court said that companies could be held liable for the impacts of their emissions. "They really established a legal duty, a legal principle of corporate climate liability, which no court has ever done anywhere else in the world in a verdict like this," Noah Walker-Crawford, a researcher at London School of Economics, Grantham Research Institute, said in a press conference after the verdict. "So this is a really, really historic decision." The court ruling stated that civil courts can rule on climate cases and that the German Civil Code overseeing property rights applies across borders and therefore, litigants around the world can file transnational cases against German companies. The court noted that RWE's permits do not exempt it from liability when infringing on the rights of others and the size of its global emissions meant it had a special responsibility for consequences due to climate change. It noted that being one of many emitters does not shield a company from liability. The court said that the link between emissions and risks dates back to 1958, when U.S. scientist Charles Keeling published a graph of the annual variation and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. It added that the 1965 Presidential SAC report that found burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO2 also gave companies enough information to foresee harmful consequences of emissions and bear legal responsibility for them. It added that there is a linear causation between emissions and climate change and the complexity of climate change science does not prevent liability. In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson for RWE said the ruling did not set a precedent as it is understood in the UK legal system, and it added three other regional courts have taken a different legal view. Since the case was thrown out, the court did not rule on whether and to what extent RWE could be held responsible, the statement said, adding that the company has operated in accordance with applicable laws and climate policy should be resolved at the political level.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
German Court Dismisses a Climate Suit but Opens the Door to Future Cases
A German court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit over global warming filed nearly a decade ago by a Peruvian farmer against a German energy company, but supporters of the long-shot bid said the decision had opened a critical avenue for future climate lawsuits. Although the Hamm Higher Regional Court ruled against the plaintiff, the presiding judge, Rolf Meyer, affirmed that German civil law could be used to hold companies accountable for the worldwide effects of their emissions. 'For the first time in history, a higher court in Europe has ruled that large emitters can be held responsible for the consequences of their greenhouse gas emissions,' said Roda Verheyen, a lawyer for the plaintiff, Saúl Luciano Lliuya. She called the ruling a milestone that 'will give a tailwind to climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, and thus to the move away from fossil fuels worldwide.' Mr. Luciano Lliuya, a farmer who also works as a tour guide, had argued that Huaraz, his city in the Andes, faced an existential risk of inundation from melting glaciers. He said that RWE, Germany's largest energy utility, was partly responsible even though it has never operated in Peru. The lawsuit alleged that RWE had contributed about .5 percent of the global emissions driving climate change and should therefore pay the same percentage of the costs of containing Lake Palcacocha, a glacial lake near Huaraz. It put that amount at $19,000. The court sent a delegation to visit Lake Palcacocha in 2022 and conducted a two-day hearing with experts this year. But the court-appointed experts put the probability of flood risk specifically to Mr. Luciano Lliuya's property at just 1 percent over the next 30 years. Given that small chance, the judge said there was no reason to investigate any link to the company's emissions. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed. Still, Mr. Luciano Lliuya said after the verdict that he was proud that the case had 'shifted the global conversation about what justice means in an era of the climate crisis.' In response to the verdict, RWE said that the notion of civil climate liability 'would have 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.' The company maintained that the lawsuit was outside the bounds of the German legal system and that it had operated in accordance with the law and detailed rules regarding emissions. The company also pointed to its work in the field of renewables and said that it had reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by more than half since 2018, and that it expected to be carbon neutral by 2040. The courts have become a central venue in the push for stronger action on climate change in recent years, with dozens of lawsuits targeting companies and governments around the world. Those include lawsuits against Shell in the Netherlands and one led by thousands of older Swiss women at the European Court of Human Rights, as well as lawsuits against energy companies filed by American state and local governments. Joana Setzer, an associate professor at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, said there were some 60 cases pending around the world aimed at holding companies liable for climate-related loss and damage. 'Today's decision offers a powerful precedent to support those efforts, by confirming the legal foundation for corporate climate liability,' she said. The environmental nonprofit group Germanwatch supported the lawsuit with public relations work, while a related foundation, Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit, covered the legal fees. Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, which was not involved in the RWE litigation, said the ruling made it more likely 'that those living at the sharp edge of climate change' will succeed in future cases. But environmentalists have also been the target of recent lawsuits by companies, including in North Dakota, where a jury found Greenpeace liable for nearly $670 million over its role in protests against an oil pipeline. Greenpeace maintained that it had played only a minor role and that the suit was an attempt to silence critics of the pipeline company, Energy Transfer. The two sides met before a judge on Tuesday, where Greenpeace argued the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to rule in Energy Transfer's favor. The judge has not yet ruled on that point, or on a separate motion to reduce the size of the award to Energy Transfer. Greenpeace has said it will appeal. The group is also counter-suing in the Netherlands.
Fast Company
6 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Can courts make fossil fuel companies pay for climate change? These cases are trying
A German court ruled against a Peruvian farmer Wednesday in a landmark case that claimed global warming fueled by energy company RWE 's historical greenhouse gas emissions put his home at risk. Farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya said glaciers above his hometown of Huaraz are melting, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding. RWE, which has never operated in Peru, denied legal responsibility, arguing that climate change is a global issue caused by many contributors. Experts said the case had the potential to set a significant precedent in the fight to hold major polluters accountable for climate change. Here's a look at other climate cases being watched closely: An environmental group has asked the Dutch Supreme Court to uphold a landmark lower court ruling that ordered energy company Shell to cut carbon emissions by net 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. That ruling was overturned in November by an appeals court — a defeat for the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups, which had hailed the original 2021 ruling as a victory for the climate. Climate activists have scored several courtroom victories, including in 2015, when a court in The Hague ordered the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels. The Dutch Supreme Court upheld that ruling five years ago. ___ The United Nations' top court held two weeks of hearings in December into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its impacts. The case was spurred by a group of island nations that fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, prompting the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice for an opinion on 'the obligations of States in respect of climate change.' Any decision in the case, the largest in the court's history, would be non-binding advice and could not directly force wealthy nations to act, though it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits. In another advisory opinion requested by small island nations, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea last year said carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and countries must take steps to mitigate and adapt to their adverse effects. ___ Colombia and Chile are awaiting an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on whether countries are responsible for climate change harms and, if so, what their obligations are to respond on human rights grounds. A four-day hearing was held this month in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and an opinion is expected by the end of the year. Much of the testimony focused on indigenous rights in Latin America, including whether industries violate their rights to life and to defend their land from environmental harm. ___ Dozens of U.S. states and local governments have filed lawsuits alleging that fossil fuel companies misled the public about how their products could contribute to climate change, claiming billions of dollars in damage from more frequent and intense storms, flooding, rising seas and extreme heat. In March the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in 19 states aimed at blocking climate change suits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states. And state supreme courts in Massachusetts, Hawaii and Colorado have rejected attempts by oil companies to dismiss lawsuits, allowing them to proceed in lower courts. Even so, the Department of Justice recently sued Hawaii and Michigan to prevent the states from seeking damages from fossil fuel companies in state court for harms caused by climate change. The DOJ also sued New York and Vermont, challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
German court rejects Peruvian farmer's landmark climate case
A court in Germany has rejected a lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer against German energy giant RWE in a long-awaited decision. Saúl Luciano Lliuya had argued that the firm's global emissions contributed to the melting of glaciers in Peru - threatening his hometown of Huaraz with was seeking €17,000 (£14,250) in compensation - money he said he would use to pay for a flood defence project to protect the the higher regional court in the German city of Hamm on Wednesday blocked the case from proceeding further and ruled out any appeals, putting an end to Mr Lliuya's 10-year legal battle. RWE said it was not active in Peru and questioned why it was singled out. It also pointed to its plans to phase out its coal-fired power plants and become carbon neutral by 2040. In their ruling on Wednesday, judges deemed that the flood risk to the property of Mr Lliuya was not high enough for the case to in what climate change groups have hailed as a win, they did say that energy companies could be held responsible for the costs caused by their carbon emissions. While the sum demanded by Mr Lliuya was very low, the case had become a cause celebre for climate change activists, who hoped that it could set a precedent for holding powerful firms to account. The 44-year-old mountain guide and farmer said he had brought the case because he had seen first-hand how rising temperatures were causing glaciers near Huaraz to said that as a result, Lake Palcacocha - which is located above the city - now has four times as much water than in 2003 and that residents like him were at risk of flooding, especially if blocks of ice were to break off from Palcacocha glacier and fall into the lake, causing it to overflow. He alleged that emissions caused by RWE were contributing to the increase in temperature in Peru's mountain region and demanded that the German firm pay towards building a flood Lliuya also said that he chose the company because a 2013 database tracking historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers listed the German energy giant as one of the biggest polluters in Europe. Mr Lliuya's original case was rejected by a lower court in Germany in 2015, with judges arguing that a single firm could not be held responsible for climate change. But in a surprise twist, Mr Lliuya in 2017 won his appeal with judges at the higher regional court, which accepted there was merit to his case and allowing it to lawyers previously argued that RWE was responsible for 0.5% of global CO2 emissions and demanded that the energy firm pay damages amounting to a proportional share of the cost of building a $3.5m-flood defence for Huaraz. Germanwatch, an environmental NGO which backed Mr Lliuya's case, celebrated the court's ruling saying it had "made legal history"."Although the court dismissed the specific claim - finding flood risk to Luciano Lliuya's home was not sufficiently high - it confirmed for the first time that major emitters can be held liable under German civil law for risks resulting from climate change," it said in a statement. The group said it was hopeful that the decision could positively influence similar cases in other countries.
