Last week, a long-running lawsuit brought against a major German energy company by a Peruvian farmer for alleged damages stemming from climate change was dismissed by an appellate court in Germany. The court's reasoning focused on the inability of the plaintiff to prove damages, highlighting the difficulty of this aspect of the various climate tort litigations for plaintiffs--and, indeed, this legal point has featured prominently in a number of defenses to these lawsuits (especially in the United States).
Nonetheless, the environmental groups backing the lawsuit claimed victory--at least to a degree--as the case could be interpreted as establishing the principle that emitters of greenhouse gases could ultimately be held liable for damages attributable to climate change, even if this particular action failed to satisfy the applicable legal standard. While it is true that this general legal principle could be invoked in other litigation in the future, environmental lawsuits will still need to be able to prove specific damages that were caused by climate change, which--as this case demonstrates--is a stringent standard to satisfy. Any future plaintiff would have to be selected delicately and deliberately, with this standard in mind--and it is not at all clear that such a suitable candidate for a legal action would be found. Simply stated, the fact that the court found that the plaintiff in this action--a homeowner whose building could be washed away if a dam formed by a glacier collapses due to warming temperatures--had insufficient proof to prosecute this claim will likely discourage (to some degree) similar lawsuits in the future.
RWE AG, one of Europe’s top carbon polluters, won dismissal of a case brought by a Peruvian farmer who tried to hold the German energy giant liable for its impact on climate change. An appeals court in Hamm on Wednesday said that while national law allows a single company to be targeted for its share of climate-related damage, not all the necessary requirements were met in this suit against RWE.
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