Peruvian glacial lake serves as courtroom for German judges overseeing unprecedented climate crisis lawsuit

A view of Lake Palcacocha with the Palcaraju glacier in the background, in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range of the Andes, Peru. Picture: Thomson Reuters Foundation/Dan Collyns

A view of Lake Palcacocha with the Palcaraju glacier in the background, in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range of the Andes, Peru. Picture: Thomson Reuters Foundation/Dan Collyns

Published Jun 3, 2022

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Increasingly warm temperatures caused by global greenhouse gas emissions have caused a Peruvian glacial lake to swell in size, placing the area at high risk for devastating glacial floods.

German judges have visited Lake Palcacocha, Peru, to determine the level of damage caused by Europe’s largest emitter in a first-of-its-kind case which could set a precedent for legal claims over human-caused global heating.

The Guardian reported that judges and court-appointed experts visited the glacial lake in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range last week to determine whether Germany’s largest electricity provider, RWE, is partially liable for the rise in greenhouse gases that could trigger a devastating flood.

The lake has swollen to 34 times its normal volume over the past 50 years. A peer-reviewed study links accelerated glacial ice melt caused by a warming planet to the substantial risk of an outburst flood which could trigger a deadly landslide inundating the city of Huaraz below.

A glacier is a thick sheet of ice formed when continuous snowfall compacts over a long period. Due to global warming, many of the world's glaciers have been melting at an extremely rapid rate. Some glaciers, which have been around for thousands of years, have disappeared due to global warming.

Huaraz is a city in northern Peru. Capital of the Ancash Region, the city sits more than 3 000m above sea level and is home to almost 120 000 people, with 50 000 at risk due to the potential glacial flooding.

“It is a possibility that a large chunk of rock with ice on it falls into the lake, then we are talking about the possibility of millions of cubic metres of water overflowing,” Dr Martin Mergili, an expert in geomorphology at Austria’s Graz University, told the Guardian.

The German court has agreed that RWE would be liable for the damages if it can be proved that the glacier poses a flood risk and that climate breakdown had caused it to melt.

“To my knowledge, this is the absolute first case globally where judges travel from one country, where the jurisdiction is, to the country where the damage is, where it is actually climate change-related,” said Roda Verheyen, an environmental lawyer who represents Saúl Luciano Lliuya.

In 2017, judges in Hamm, Germany, made litigation history by accepting a case opened by farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya against RWE, asking for €17 000 (about R285 000) for the costs of preventing damage from a potentially devastating outburst flood from the lake.

The lawsuit may have huge ramifications for the fossil fuel industry. RWE is being charged for contributing to 0.47% of global emissions in the past. Similar situations might arise in the future for companies such as BP and Shell.

“This is the only case in the entire world to this day that looks at the responsibility of private emitters of greenhouse gases to take responsibility for the impacts of climate change in a different country,” said Verheyen. “And for some reason, which I cannot explain, it remains the only one.”

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