Saúl Luciano Lliuya in the Palcacocha Lagoon, which is growing due to glacier melting caused by climate change. Photo: Walter Hupiu Tapia/Germanwatch e.V., used with permission.

A German court on May 28, 2025, dismissed a Peruvian farmer’s lawsuit seeking damages from German energy company RWE for allegedly putting his home at risk through climate change, as the judge ruled that a damage-risk estimate was too small to take the case further.

However, legal and scientific experts working on climate change who have closely followed the pioneering case hailed its wider significance, arguing that the judgement affirmed that major emitters of planet-heating gases can be held liable for their contributions to climate change, even from overseas.

They say the precedent could encourage impacted communities to seek justice through the courts. Delta Merner, of the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union for Concerned Scientists, said the ruling “confirmed that climate science can provide a basis for legal liability, which is a critical precedent in the broader push for climate accountability.” The environmentalist group noted that dozens of similar cases are globally working their way through the courts.

Lisa Reiser, from Global Litigation News, suggested that the “overarching question” was:

[C]an individual companies with high emissions be held liable for their contributions to the global climate change? The answer of the Higher Regional Court of Hamm: yes, they can! It was only in this particular case that the court came to the conclusion that there was no immediate risk to Lliuya’s property.

As for the widely followed, decade-old case of farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya, who claimed that emissions from coal giant RWE contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers and to a higher flood risk for his home, a German court in the western city of Hamm said that no appeal was possible.

Presiding judge Rolf Meyer said experts’ estimate of the 30-year damage risk to the plaintiff’s house of one percent was not high enough to take the case further. Nonetheless, Meyer continued, had there been a larger adverse effect, a polluter could have been made to slash emissions or pay damages.

The judge added that the plaintiff’s case was argued coherently and that it was “like a microcosm of the world’s problems between people of the southern and the northern hemisphere, between the poor and the rich.”

RWE questions legal precedent

Germanwatch, an environmental and human rights advocacy group supporting the litigation, cited Lliuya’s lawyer Roda Verheyen as saying the case would encourage more lawsuits.

After the verdict, Noah Walker-Crawford, a researcher at London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute, noted that the court's decision means “that other people [who are affected by climate change] can bring other cases [and] can draw on that principle.”

However, RWE, which is phasing out its coal-fired power plants, claimed the attempt to create a legal precedent had failed, saying, “We regard it as an entirely misplaced approach to turn courtrooms into a forum for NGOs’ demands on climate protection policies.”

In a statement, the utility added:

RWE has always considered such civil ‘climate liability’ to be inadmissible under German law. It would have unforeseeable consequences for Germany as an industrial location, because ultimately claims could be asserted against any German company for damage caused by climate change anywhere in the world.

The company said it was on track to become climate neutral by 2040 and that overall, the German industrial sector had progressed well in cutting CO2 emissions compared with other countries.

Using data from the Carbon Majors database, which tracks historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers, Lliuya had claimed RWE was responsible for nearly 0.5 percent of global man-made emissions since the industrial revolution and must pay a proportionate share of the costs to adapt to climate change.

According to the farmer's calculations, for a EUR 3.5 million (USD 3.9 million) flood defence project needed in his region, RWE’s share would be around EUR 17,500 (USD 19907).

Confluence of two rivers coming from the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, where Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s home is threatened by a melting glacier. Photo: Alexander Luna/Germanwatch e.V., used with permission.

The 44-year-old farmer, whose family grows corn, wheat, barley and potatoes outside Huaraz, was not in court during the verdict. He explained that he chose to sue RWE, rather than any other company operating near his home, because it is one of the biggest polluters in Europe.

Speaking to reporters from a hotel in his hometown of Huaraz, Lliuya said that even though the court threw out the case, it was a step forward for climate justice:

From the beginning we wanted to set a precedent to hold companies responsible. We didn’t get everything, but this was a big step forward for other lawsuits.

The mountain guide and small farmer Saúl Lliuya Luciano, here visiting the Aletsch Glacier in the Alps, took RWE to court and demanded climate justice. Photo: Alex Luna/Germanwatch e.V., used with permission.