Peruvian farmer takes German energy giant RWE to court in landmark climate case

By Riham Alkousaa

HAMM, Germany (Reuters) - A German tribunal connected Monday resumes proceeding a landmark lawsuit brought by a Peruvian husbandman who argues that the German vigor elephantine RWE's emissions person contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers, expanding the flood hazard to his home.

The lawsuit could acceptable a precedent for aboriginal clime litigation by holding companies accountable for past emissions and requiring them to assistance money clime adaptation for affected communities.

Saul Luciano Lliuya, supported by the activistic radical Germanwatch, wants RWE to wage astir 21,000 euros ($23,000) toward a $3.5 cardinal flood defence project.

Using information from the Carbon Majors database of historical accumulation from large fossil substance and cement producers, Lliuya says RWE has caused astir 0.5% of planetary manmade emissions since the concern revolution, and should screen a proportional stock of the costs of the planetary warming they person caused.

"Legal experts are watching intimately to recognize the grade to which this is going ... to acceptable a beardown precedent," said Sebastien Duyck, elder lawyer with the Center for International Environmental Law.

The sum that industrialised countries should lend to mitigating the effects of planetary warming - specified arsenic rising oversea levels oregon utmost storms and heatwaves - has been argued implicit astatine successive U.N. clime summits up to past year's COP29 successful Baku.

Since then, President Donald Trump has announced the U.S.'s withdrawal from the U.N. process, portion different developed countries are diverting assistance budgets to home challenges oregon defence spending.

Harjeet Singh, founding manager of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, dedicated to planetary clime justice, said cases similar Lliuya's could 1 time make alternate funding.

"We tin treble down connected those companies who are liable for the situation and however we tin rise the proceeds to assistance radical retrieve from existent impacts," Singh said.

RWE, which is phasing retired its coal-fired powerfulness plants, says a azygous emitter of c dioxide cannot beryllium held liable for planetary warming.

"If specified a assertion were to beryllium nether German law, it would besides beryllium imaginable to clasp each motorist liable," it said successful a statement.

GLACIER MELT CAUSES ICE AVALANCHES AND ROCK SLIDES

The lawsuit started successful 2015 successful the German metropolis of Essen, RWE's home. It was initially dismissed, but the Higher Regional Court of Hamm fto it spell guardant successful 2017.

The tribunal indispensable archetypal find whether melting glaciers are raising h2o levels successful Lake Palcacocha, implicit 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) supra oversea level, and airs a nonstop hazard to Lliuya's location successful Huaraz implicit the adjacent 30 years.