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Climate|German Court Dismisses a Climate Suit but Opens the Door to Future Cases
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/climate/rwe-lawsuit-peru-farmer-germany.html
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The judges ruled that German civil law could be used to hold companies accountable for the worldwide effects of their emissions.
May 28, 2025, 2:56 p.m. ET
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.
