Sawt Falasteen - Peru farmer confident ahead of German court battle with energy giant

Saul Luciano Lliuya, 44, argues that electricity producer RWE, as one of the world's top emitters of climate-altering carbon dioxide, must share in the cost of protecting his hometown Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing from melting snow and ice.

He will depart for Germany in the coming days for a hearing scheduled for March 17-19 in the northwestern city of Hamm.

"I have full confidence in these processes," he told a press conference in Lima on Wednesday.

The father of two wants RWE, headquartered in Essen, Germany, to pay about 17,000 euros ($18,400) towards flood defenses for his community in Peru's northern Ancash region.

"What I am asking is for the company to take responsibility for part of the construction costs, such as a dike in this case," he said Wednesday.

Lliuya based his claim on a 2013 climate study which found RWE was responsible for some 0.5 percent of global emissions "since the beginning of industrialization."

He filed a suit against the company in 2015, but a court in Essen dismissed the case the following year.

In 2017, however, a higher court in the city of Hamm admitted an appeal.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, German experts and judges visited Lake Palcacocha and the surrounding glaciers in Huaraz in 2022 to assess the situation.

This month's hearings must decide on the admissibility of the evidence collected.

The lawsuit is supported by the environmental NGO Germanwatch, whose lawyer Andrea Tang told reporters in Lima that "never before has a case of climate justice reached an evidentiary stage."

She added the case "would set a huge precedent for the future of climate justice... something that could be applied in other civil cases, in other countries as well."

RWE, which has never operated in Peru, says it has always complied with government guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions and is pursuing the goal of being CO2-neutral by 2040.

The company has said it does not understand why it is being singled out for legal action.

N.Shalabi--SF-PST