Updates from the Peruvian Mountain Guide Climate Case

A climate case of potentially worldwide importance was in court in Hamm in Germany on 17 March 2025, inching its way towards a ruling.  It has seen court-appointed experts from Germany navigating the Peruvian Andes by donkey.

A Peruvian farmer and mountain guide, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, lives in Huaraz, Peru, where he claims that his home if threatened by glacial lake outbursts from Lake Palcacocha caused by rapidly warming glaciers.

Looking north over Huaraz (3100 m) towards the highest region of the Cordillera Blanca. Image from WIkipedia. Link here.

At The Borrowed Earth Project did a background article on this case on 8 October 2024 which you can read here. From that article we explained that:

“Dr Verheyen argues that RWE, which has produced and burned coal in its power stations over several decades, much of it low grade and high polluting lignite, is responsible for 0.47% of global emissions, and the claim is for 0.47% of the costs of establishment of flood prevention measures to protect Huaraz. The sums involved are tiny: the implications are enormous.

RWE is defending the case robustly. It argues that the claim makes no more sense than attributing part of the responsibility for global warming to an individual airline passenger or a truck fleet operator. “

With the help of expert German environmental lawyers, Sr Lliuya claims that a measurable percentage of the damage and costs of man made global warming is attributable to individual companies - in this case the German power utility RWE - based on their publicly reported production volumes of fossil fuels. The actual claim is for 17,000 Euros.

But if the principle is established, of individual companies’ responsibility for measurable amounts of the actual damage and actual costs of climate change, the outcome will be heard around the world.

Board directors of fossil fuel companies, who have recently been in Houston, Texas for the annual celebration of CERA Week might like to devote 0.47% of their time to considering what individual company responsibility for the full costs of their company’s operations on the climate could mean for them.