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A German court is set to rule Wednesday - tomorrow - on a groundbreaking climate lawsuit that could set a global precedent. Here are the details. A Peruvian farmer is suing a major energy company, blaming its carbon emissions for climate-related threats to his home in the Andes. The company warns this could open the door to holding all German emitters liable for global climate damage, while environmentalists hail the case as a game changer potentially for corporate accountability. Simeon Tegel reports from Peru.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
SIMEON TEGEL, BYLINE: From his home in a steep, verdant Andean valley, a Quechua-speaking semi-subsistence farmer and mountain guide is taking on an energy giant on the other side of the world.
SAUL LUCIANO LLIUYA: (Speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: We meet Saul Luciano Lliuya on his remote two-acre plot of land, where he lives with his wife, grows corn, wheat and potatoes and fishes for trout in the local streams.
(SOUNDBITE OF ICE CRASHING DOWN)
TEGEL: And this is the threat. Huge blocks of ice crash down the side of Palcaraju, a mountain towering more than 20,000 feet in the heart of the Peruvian Andes, which are home to 70% of the world's tropical glaciers.
LUCIANO LLIUYA: (Speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Luciano Lliuya's home and those of 50,000 other locals are at risk of being washed away in a deluge triggered by a major avalanche from Palcaraju into Palcacocha, a lake of glacial melt water directly beneath its summit. Thanks to climate change, Palcacocha has swollen to more than 30 times its historic volume.
We're at the lake. It's about 15,000 feet above sea level. The air is very thin. You can really feel the altitude. And on the far side of the lake, high above it, you can see the glacier - just these huge slabs and walls of ice just stretching up into the clouds out of sight. And it's an absolutely spectacular, sublime sight and just really very strange to think that such a beautiful landscape could potentially be so deadly.
This danger is now at the heart of Luciano Lliuya's lawsuit against RWE, Germany's largest power company.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The world is on a journey towards a green future. RWE has already undergone a fundamental transformation.
TEGEL: RWE is now moving into wind and solar power. It promises to be net-zero by 2040. But for more than a century, the company burned huge quantities of coal. It questions the danger posed by Palcacocha and argues the climate crisis should be resolved by governments, not in court.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Together, we are leading the way to a green energy world.
TEGEL: Judges in a court in Hamm, in northwestern Germany near RWE's head office, are due this Wednesday to rule on whether the company should pay about $18,000, roughly half a percent of the cost of building a flood defense to protect the population below Palcacocha, including in the local city of Huaraz. Lawyers for Luciano Lliuya argue that since RWE is responsible for 0.5% of global emissions, it should cover that share of the project's cost.
CESAR PORTOCARRERO: (Speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Cesar Portocarrero is a civil engineer and glacier expert from Huaraz. He says simulations show that a major avalanche into Lake Palcacocha could trigger a wave more than 60 feet high, which would barrel 5,000 feet down a mountain gorge and eventually into the bustling market town where he lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS HONKING)
TEGEL: It's also a mecca for mountain sports. Adventurers come from around the world here to go trekking, climbing and mountaineering in the mountains around and above the city.
Back at his home, halfway between Palcacocha and Huaraz, Luciano Lliuya chats about his father and other retired porters' sense of nostalgia for how the mountains once used to be before many glaciers slowly transformed into high-altitude lakes.
LUCIANO LLIUYA: (Speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Suing a major corporation in the developed world once seemed impossible, says Luciano Lliuya. But now, a decade after first launching his legal case with the help of Germanwatch, a campaign group, he is filled with hope. If he wins, it could pave the way for others on the frontlines of climate chaos to hold some of the world's richest companies liable for the financial impact.
For NPR News, this is Simeon Tegel in the Ancash region of Peru. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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