Klimaklage

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) makes legal history with its landmark rulings on three climate litigation cases. The court made clear that climate change poses a major threat to human rights as protected by the Human Rights Convention. Every state is responsible for safeguarding the lives of its citizens from the climate crisis. A precedent that has an impact on all EU member states, including Germany. An analysis by Roda Verheyen and Gerd Winter.

Today, eight years ago, the Peruvian mountain guide and small farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya filed his civil lawsuit against RWE at the regional court in Essen in Germany. What began back then has now become one of the world's most recognised precedents for the question of whether individual major emitters must pay for protection against climate risks.

The environmental and development organisation Germanwatch points out that fossil fuel companies will have to disclose climate risks in their risk reports and have them externally audited. The reason for this is a new study by a team of researchers from the renowned London School of Economics and Political Science, which shows a clear connection between climate litigation and share price losses of affected companies.

More than 50,000 inhabitants of the Andean city of Huaraz are threatened by a flood wave due to global warming. The Andean farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya decided to take action: On 24 November 2015, he filed a lawsuit against the energy company RWE in a German civil court. One year after the court visit to Huaraz, the expert report will finally be available this summer. A hearing at the Higher Regional Court of Hamm is expected later this year.

Seven years ago, Saúl Luciano Lliuya from the Andean city of Huaraz (Peru) went to a German civil court to hold Europe's largest greenhouse gas emitter - RWE - accountable. What began then is now a globally respected precedent on the question of whether major emitters must pay for protecting people from climate risks. Show him your support!

This policy brief adresses two important questions:

Firstly, the role of climate litigation this far in adressing legal claims for loss and damage.

Secondly, the potential that climate litigation holds in redressing the claims of losses and damages.

The brief provides an analysis of how two arenas of legal action - negotiations and litigation - interact and how they can work together to provide a more robust legal basis for supporting issues of loss and damage.

The climate lawsuit of the Peruvian Andean farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya against the energy company RWE has entered the decisive phase six and a half years after the lawsuit was filed: After a long delay, especially due to the Corona pandemic, a site visit took place this week in the Andean city of Huaraz. Judges of the Higher Regional Court (OLG) of Hamm (Germany), legal advisors and experts travelled to Peru to examine whether the plaintiff's house is threatened by a possible flood wave from the glacier lake Palcacocha above the city. The entire danger zone in Huaraz actually covers an area where around 50,000 people live.

The RWE case is finally moving forward: in summer, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm will conduct a site visit to Huaraz. The visit had been delayed since 2019 due to the COVID 19 pandemic. In Peru, judges and court-appointed experts will examine the risk of glacial lake outburst flood affecting the plaintiff Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s house.

Lüke Recktenwald is a real "islander". His family has been living on the North Sea island of Langeoog for four generations and runs a hotel and restaurant. Whether Lüke will be able to live and work on the island in the future like his parents is uncertain, as Langeoog is increasingly threatened by the climate crisis. In this interview he tells how he experiences the climate and health crisis on the island and why he decided to go to court to demand climate protection.

Loss and damage (L&D) due to climate change impacts is already a reality for many people, especially the most vulnerable. So far, there is no prospect of sufficient financial support for dealing with actual L&D within the climate regime (UNFCCC). Where international climate diplomacy doesn’t advance, affected people start to take the legal avenue to address the problem of L&D. Based on this assessment, this paper analyses the status quo of international climate change litigation, revealing how the current court cases are turning an abstract risk of climate claims into a concrete one.