Why a Peruvian farmer’s court loss may be a win for climate justice

A decade-long court battle between a Peruvian farmer and German energy giant RWE over the company’s global emissions and its impact on his home town finally came to an end on May 28.

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.

What was the case about?

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.

The farmer, Mr Saul Luciano Lliuya, sued RWE, claiming it should pay for 0.5 per cent of the flood defences since the company emitted 0.5 per cent of global emissions since the industrial revolution despite not having a physical presence in Peru.

The amount would have come out to about US$17,500 (S$22,600).

Why did the court rule against the farmer?

The court’s decision was based on calculating the risk Mr Lliuya’s home faced from flooding. An expert opinion found that the 30-year damage risk to the plaintiff’s house was 1 per cent. The court deemed this was not enough to take the case further.

How does the court ruling make companies liable in similar lawsuits?

While Mr Lliuya’s house’s risk did not 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,” Dr 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.

What did the court say about climate change?

The court said the link between emissions and risks dates back to 1958, when US scientist Charles Keeling published a graph of the annual variation and accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth’s atmosphere.

It added that the 1965 report by US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisory committee 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.

What does RWE say about the case?

In a statement to Reuters, a spokesman for RWE said the ruling did not set a precedent as it is understood in the British 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. REUTERS