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The threat posed by climate change is dramatic. In 2024, the regional glacier authority INAIGEM once again revealed in a study that the numerous glacial lakes in the region pose a major threat to the population. Rockfalls and avalanches frequently occur. Together with Saúl Luciano Lliuya and the NGO Wayintsik Perú, Germanwatch is continuing to work to ensure that protection and adaptation measures to deal with the consequences of climate change are implemented. 

Germanwatch will continue to promote the importance of this case - especially in the context of international climate negotiations - and will campaign for the rights and protection of people who are particularly affected.

Together with his lawyer, Dr. Roda Verheyen, Saúl will analyze the ruling of May 28  2025 in his climate lawsuit against RWE and examine further legal steps. 

Together with the local NGO Wayintsik- Perú and the initiative “Salvemos los Andes”, he will inform his community about the significance of the verdict he has achieved and continue to raise awareness about the climate crisis and the role and responsibility of large emitters.

Germanwatch and the Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit will remain in contact with the plaintiff and the NGO Wayintsik Perú and will do everything possible to ensure that protective measures are implemented at the Palcacocha glacial lake. 

Saúl Luciano Lliuya continues to work as a mountain guide and organizes mountain tours in the region for tourists. His family cultivates a piece of land outside the city to grow vegetables and keep animals. Saúl will continue to pursue these activities in the future.

Courts are there to apply the law in individual cases and make appropriate decisions. Politicians, on the other hand, have a responsibility to recognize structural problems that are revealed within the framework of individual proceedings and to respond with appropriate measures. In the course of these proceedings, a problem became apparent that goes far beyond this specific case: instead of the companies that have profited from climate-damaging business models for decades, it is currently individual affected parties and, in some cases, countries with comparatively low historical emissions that are bearing the major burden of the costs of the climate crisis.

We now urgently need regulations at national and international level that set out clear obligations for those responsible for the climate crisis. For political decision-makers: the momentum is there to create a clear legal framework, distribute the cost of climate impacts fairly and prevent further damage. If this does not succeed, corporations will have to operate with the constant risk of legal liability - and those affected worldwide will go to court with their backs strengthened.

The ruling increases the pressure on companies in the fossil fuel industry: the decision that they can generally be held liable for climate impacts means that their fossil fuel business models are subject to legal and therefore also financial risk. Major emitters must now include these potential costs in their calculations. If fossil fuel companies can no longer pass on the consequences of their business models to the state and those affected, this will call their profitability into question. The ruling therefore also sends a clear message to the financial markets that fossil fuel investments have no future.

With its ruling in the RWE case, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm has made an important fundamental decision that has an impact far beyond the individual case: it has legally established that large emitters can be held responsible for the consequences of climate change. Court rulings play a central role in the interpretation of the law and decision-making. It opens doors for those affected by the climate crisis to take legal action against large emitters (see FAQ above). However, the arguments of the Higher Regional Court of Hamm will also have an impact beyond the courtroom and shape the public and political discourse on the question of the extent to which an overall mechanism for holding large emitters accountable for their costs is necessary.

The verdict is a great success despite the dismissal of the case. This is because it is the first time that a higher court in Europe has established that major emitters can be held liable for the consequences of climate change under German civil law. This is a historic landmark ruling that can be applied by those affected in many places around the world. The judges have determined that Section 1004 of the German Civil Code (so-called “neighborhood provision”) is also applicable to the climate crisis and transnational contexts, as in the case of RWE (based in Essen, Germany) and Saúl Luciano Lliuya (resident in Huaraz, Peru). Similar legal provisions exist in more than fifteen other countries, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan. Courts are increasingly deciding that companies have a responsibility in the face of the climate crisis (for example in a court case in the Netherlands against Shell) and at the same time the findings of climate science are becoming ever more precise. The chances of success for those affected who want to hold major emitters accountable in court are higher than ever before. Saúl Luciano Lliuya's lawsuit was not just about himself and winning an individual case, but about strengthening the rights of all people exposed to the dangers of the climate crisis against those responsible. He has succeeded in doing so.

In the opinion of the Civil Senate, it could not be proven in the specific case that there was a sufficiently high probability that Saúl Luciano Lliuya's property would be affected by a glacial flood.

The court followed the expert opinion on the flood risk submitted by the court experts in the summer of 2024, which was the focus of the hearing in March 2025. The court experts estimated the probability of a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) reaching Saúl Luciano Lliuya's property in the next thirty years at one percent. The experts based their findings on events from the past and applied them to the future. In doing so, they ignored rockfalls as a trigger for a flood wave and the fact that these are occurring more and more frequently as the climate crisis continues. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes that the probability of events leading to glacial lake outbursts in high mountain regions (and especially in the Andes) will increase in the future; in particular, it is expected that the melting of permafrost will make glaciers and mountains more unstable and large rockfalls more likely. The plaintiff side, together with experts from the fields of climate and glacier science, had submitted their own expert reports on the risk of rockfalls and included the consequences of climate change in their calculations. They came to the conclusion that the probability of a GLOF occurring in the next thirty years is thirty percent.