Securing climate justice in the courtroom

From Nature, 20 August 2025:

From the smiles, bouquets and cheers among the crowd gathered outside the Higher Regional Court of Hamm in Germany on 28 May, it might have looked like those present were celebrating a win. In fact, they had just lost a ten-year legal battle.

In 2015, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a mountain guide from the alpine town of Huaraz in Peru, sued German multinational energy giant RWE for its contribution to global warming, which threatened Lliuya’s home with flooding from a nearby glacial lake. The case had numerous setbacks over the ensuing decade, but the final blow came on 28 May. The court dismissed the latest appeal, saying the likelihood of a flooding event reaching Lliuya’s home and causing serious damage was too low to justify legal intervention.

Yet, outside the courtroom on that fateful day, Lliuya’s lawyer Roda Verheyen declared jubilantly to waiting reporters, “I’m so happy”. The reason for her celebration was that the court decision created a bombshell precedent: major greenhouse-gas emitters could be held liable for costs of damage in the future, on the basis of their proportional contribution to global emissions. “This ruling shows that the big polluters driving the climate can finally be held legally responsible for the harm they have caused,” Lliuya said in a statement. Read more.