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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.
Al Jazeera
7 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
German court rejects Peruvian farmer's climate case against RWE
A German court has thrown out a Peruvian farmer's lawsuit seeking damages from RWE for the German energy utility's alleged role in putting his hometown at risk through climate change. The higher regional court in the western city of Hamm on Wednesday blocked the landmark complaint brought by Saul Luciano Lliuya, 44, who argued that RWE's historical emissions meant it was responsible for the higher flood risk caused by the melting of the Andean glaciers his hometown was facing. 'This is an extraordinary case,' said Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting from Hamm, Germany. 'For the first time, a person from the Global South is filing a legal case against a company from the Global North, holding it responsible, accountable for global warming and effects of it' on their home country. 'What is interesting in this case is what will be the legal reasoning' as to why the presiding judge decided to throw out this case, said Vaessen. Presenting data from the Carbon Majors database, which tracks historical emissions from chief fossil fuel producers, Lliuya said RWE, Germany's largest energy company, is responsible for nearly 0.5 percent of global man-made emissions since the industrial revolution and must pay a proportional share of the costs needed to adapt to climate change. For a $3.5m flood defence project needed in his region, RWE's share would be about $17,500, according to Lliuya's calculations. The Peruvian farmer, whose family grows corn, wheat, barley and potatoes in a hilly region outside northern Peru's Huaraz city, has said he decided to sue RWE because it is one of Europe's biggest polluters – rather than any particular company projects near his home. RWE, which is phasing out its coal-fired power plants, has said a single emitter of carbon dioxide cannot be held responsible for climate change. Prior to Wednesday's decision, the farmer's lawyer had previously said 'this was a historic verdict' regardless of outcome, as the case notes consisted of 180 pages, meaning the judges took the case 'very seriously', travelling to the affected area in Peru with experts to examine the 'exact effects of global warming on this particular community', said Vaessen. The presiding judge told RWE it 'should have been aware of the effects of their emissions', Vaessen added. This trial 'could be a serious precedent for other people living in the Global South who are suffering a lot more from climate change than in other parts of the world to potentially file cases in the future'.
BreakingNews.ie
7 days ago
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
German court rules against Peruvian farmer in landmark climate lawsuit
A German court has ruled against a Peruvian farmer in a landmark climate lawsuit where he claimed that global warming fuelled by energy company RWE's historical greenhouse gas emissions put his home at risk. Farmer and mountain guide Saul Luciano Lliuya said that glaciers above his hometown of Huaraz, Peru, are melting, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding. Advertisement RWE, which has never operated in Peru, denies legal responsibility, arguing that climate change is a global issue caused by many contributors. The state court in Hamm, in western Germany, dismissed the lawsuit on Wednesday. The case has been going on for a decade. Mr Lliuya cannot appeal the ruling further. Experts said that the case had the potential to set a significant precedent in the fight to hold major polluters accountable for climate change. RWE argued that the lawsuit is legally inadmissible and that it sets a dangerous precedent by holding individual emitters accountable for global climate change. Advertisement It insists climate solutions should be addressed through state and international policies, not the courts. Judges and experts from Germany visited Peru in 2022.
Reuters
7 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
German court throws out Peruvian farmer's climate case against RWE
HAMM, Germany May 28 (Reuters) - A German court on Wednesday threw out a Peruvian farmer's lawsuit seeking damages from RWE ( opens new tab for the German energy utility's alleged role in putting his home at risk through climate change. The court said no appeal was possible in the decade-old case of farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya claiming that RWE's emissions have contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers and to higher flood risk to his home. Using data from the Carbon Majors database which tracks historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers, Lliuya has said that RWE is responsible for nearly 0.5% of global man-made emissions since the industrial revolution and must pay a proportional share of the costs needed to adapt to climate change. For a $3.5 million flood defence project needed in his region, RWE's share would be around $17,500, according to Lliuya's calculations. The 44-year-old farmer, whose family grows corn, wheat, barley and potatoes in a hilly region outside Huaraz, has said he chose to sue RWE because it is one of the biggest polluters in Europe - rather than any particular company projects near his home. RWE, which is phasing out its coal-fired power plants, has said a single emitter of carbon dioxide cannot be held responsible for global warming.
Reuters
7 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
German court to rule on Peruvian farmer versus RWE climate case
May 28 (Reuters) - A German court is due to decide on Wednesday whether a lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer against German energy giant RWE ( opens new tab can continue, in a landmark case that is setting a precedent for future climate change litigation. In a case that began a decade ago, farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya argues that RWE's emissions have contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers, increasing the flood risk to his home. Using data from the Carbon Majors database, which tracks historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers, Lliuya says RWE is responsible for nearly 0.5% of global man-made emissions since the industrial revolution and must pay a proportional share of the costs needed to adapt to climate change. For a $3.5 million flood defence project needed in his region, RWE's share would be around $17,500, according to Lliuya's calculations. The 44-year-old farmer, whose family grows corn, wheat, barley and potatoes in a hilly region outside Huaraz, says he has chosen to sue RWE because it is one of the biggest polluters in Europe - rather than any particular company projects near his home. RWE, which is phasing out its coal-fired power plants, says a single emitter of carbon dioxide cannot be held responsible for global warming. In two days of hearing in March, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm examined a 200-page report by experts it had appointed to determine whether melting glaciers were raising the water levels in Lake Palcacocha and posing a direct risk to Lliuya's home in Huaraz over the next three decades. Lliuya's lawyer Roda Verheyen in March raised concerns about the assessment of risks by the court experts, who found a 3% flood risk, and said she was ready to challenge their findings. The verdict was originally due in April, but the court had to postpone it because Verheyen filed a motion to disqualify one of the court's experts. Verheyen said the arguments were clear. "In my view, we cannot lose," she told a media briefing last Thursday. The amount that industrialised countries should contribute to mitigating the effects of global warming, including rising sea levels, extreme storms and heatwaves, has been fiercely debated at successive U.N. climate summits. If the court on Wednesday finds a specific flooding risk to Lliuya's home, it will then examine the impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions on Andean glaciers melting and increasing the risk. Whatever the outcome on Wednesday, climate academics said the case was a game-changer as the court's legal reasoning would be used by future cases. "Even if the case is dismissed, we expect to get this legal precedent, which would be a massive step forward," Noah Walker-Crawford, a researcher at London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute, said. ($1 = 0.8809 euros)
