Pakistani farmers to sue German polluters over climate-linked flood damage | Flooding

A group of Pakistani farmers whose livelihoods were devastated by floods three years ago have launched legal action against two of Germany’s most polluting companies.

Lawyers representing 43 men and women from the Sindh region sent formal letters to energy company RWE and cement producer Heidelberg on Tuesday, warning them of their intention to sue later this year.

Pakistan was the country most affected by extreme weather events in 2022, according to the Global Climate Risk Index. That summer, extreme rains flooded a third of the country, killing at least 1,700 people, displacing 33 million, destroying large swaths of farmland, and causing economic losses of up to $30 billion.

The Sindh region suffered the heaviest toll, with many districts remaining underwater for more than a year. During this period, the plaintiffs saw all their land flooded and lost at least two crops of rice and wheat. They estimate the total damage at 1 million euros, for which they want recognition of responsibility and some compensation from the two companies. If they don’t get that information, they plan to go to court in December.

RWE and Heidelberg Materials are two of the most polluting German companies. RWE is responsible for 0.68% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1965 through its fossil fuel production and Heidelberg for at least 0.12% through its cement production, according to new figures from the Climate Accountability Institute, which have not yet been published.

“Those who cause the damage should also pay the costs,” said Abdul Hafeez Khoso, a landowner and teacher who lives in Molabuxkhoso village in northern Sindh and is one of the plaintiffs. “We, who have contributed the least to the climate crisis, are losing our homes and livelihoods while companies in the rich countries of the North continue to make profits. »

RWE and Heidelberg have been contacted for comment.

The ruling is part of a new wave of cross-border climate damage litigation. Last week, a group of typhoon survivors in the Philippines announced they would sue Shell in a British court. And in September, a Swiss court held its first hearing on a complaint filed against the Swiss cement company Holcim by four residents of the Indonesian island of Pulau Pari.

In recent years, European courts have become increasingly open to hearing and deciding claims filed by disaster victims.

The legal team handling the new Pakistani case hopes to build on the ashes of a failed climate trial earlier this year, which also sought damages from RWE. Farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya could not demonstrate that his house was at direct risk of being swept away by a glacial flood, but the judge confirmed that companies could theoretically be held liable for climate damage in civil proceedings in a German court.

Regarding the Lliuya case, RWE said it had “always operated its power plants in accordance with current law…it would be an irreconcilable contradiction if the state allowed CO2 emissions, regulated them in detail and in some cases even required them, but at the same time retroactively imposed civil liability for them.”

By denouncing past rather than future harm, the farmers’ legal team hopes to overcome evidentiary hurdles. It will submit studies showing the impact of anthropogenic climate change on rainfall patterns, including the 2022 floods in Pakistan and the Sindh region in particular.

Clara Gonzales, co-director of the Business and Human Rights program at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, who also supports the Holcim case, said she hoped to take the case law a step further. She said: “The climate crisis is no longer a theoretical threat; it is a current reality. Diplomacy may have failed in affected communities, but the rule of law should be on their side. It is time to draw a clear line: the carbon majors must not escape the ‘polluter pays’ principle.”