In 2015, Peruvian mountain guide and Huaraz resident Saúl Luciano Lliuya filed a lawsuit against German energy company RWE to recoup 0.5% of the costs for a dike he built to protect the city against glacial lake outburst flooding. 

Recently, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm, Germany, concluded that polluting gas-emitting corporations such as RWE could be held liable for climate change-induced damages, even those occurring continents away, Columbia University's GlacierHub explained.

Unfortunately for Lliuya, his lawsuit was dismissed because the risk was deemed insufficient in scale or certainty. However, the court's conclusions could set a precedent for similar lawsuits, many of which are already underway.

"He basically lost because he lives 50 feet too far away from the river," said Noah Walker-Crawford, a former climate litigation adviser at the nonprofit Germanwatch who worked on the case.

The dike was built to avoid a repeat of a glacial lake outburst flood that occurred back in 1941, when a gush of water spilled into the valley and killed at least 1,800 people.

While the €17,000 that Lliuya sought was nominal — matching the 0.5% of planet-warming pollution the company has contributed to the atmosphere — it may move the needle for communities seeking financial compensation for climate change-related damages.

Awareness of glacial instability dates back to 1968, when John Mercer determined that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was a "uniquely vulnerable and unstable body of ice" and susceptible to rising global temperatures.

More recently, scientists have discovered that glaciers across Europe are melting at a rapid pace. With ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica containing approximately 70% of the world's freshwater reserves, the situation could prove catastrophic. 

"We are seeing an unprecedented change in the glaciers," said Sulagna Mishra, a scientific officer at the World Meteorological Organization — and much of it could be irreversible. 

Walker-Crawford further explained that following the court's decision, other Huaraz residents living closer to the river's glacial danger zone and emboldened by Lliuya's efforts "have already come forward saying they want to bring claims of their own."

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The World Glacier Monitoring Service estimates that glaciers — excluding the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets — have lost more than 9,920 billion tons of mass since 1975. 

WGMS data indicates that 25-30% of sea level rise is attributable to glacier melt, and communities such as Huaraz are on the front lines. 

GlacierHub also noted that a day after the Lliuya decision, debris from a collapsing glacier crushed an entire mountain town in Switzerland. The country's wealth, however, enabled it to monitor glacial changes and carry out an evacuation before the incident occurred. 

For Peruvians, Lliuya has become "a symbolic representative," according to Walker-Crawford, demonstrating that taking local action against corporations that contribute to environmental damage is not only possible but also worthwhile.

Though Lliuya's case was dismissed, it has been celebrated locally and nationally as "a big success."

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