We would like to invite you to a joint webinar organised by PROCLIAS WP2+4 on "The role of impact science in climate litigation". The webinar will be held on 15 September 2021, 3 pm (Berlin time). Please find a detailed description and the panelists below. We hope that this webinar can give a hands-on example of how scientific research can contribute to climate litigation cases.
Please register here if you are interested to join and feel free to spread this email to anyone that you think is interested.
Title: The role of impact science in climate litigation
Date & time: 15 September 2021, 9am New York, 10am Sao Paulo, 2pm London, 3pm Berlin, 9pm Singapore.
Location: Zoom Webinar.
In November 2015, a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, launched a pioneering bid for climate justice in a German court. Lliuya claimed that a retreating glacier above his home city of Huaraz had led to the expansion of Lake Palcacocha in the wake of its recession, and that this had happened due to climate change. Today, Lake Palcacocha threatens to burst onto Huaraz with catastrophic consequences. In this case, Lliuya has sought compensation from a German energy company, RWE, for part of the costs of reducing the flood risk, on the basis of RWE’s greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore contribution to climate change.
While the German courts have deliberated over Lliuya’s case, growing numbers of climate-related lawsuits have been filed worldwide aiming to secure compensation for the impacts of climate change or to compel governments to strengthen climate targets. Many of these cases make causal claims about the effect of defendants’ greenhouse gas emissions on plaintiffs, for which the right scientific evidence may be crucial.
In this event, we will bring together pioneering lawyers to explore the different legal strategies being deployed to protect human rights from the impacts of climate change, and the role science can play. The panel will also discuss the key arguments used in Lliuya v RWE, and the scientific evidence used to support them. The event is organised by the COST Action PROCLIAS.
Panel members:
- Dr Roda Verheyen: Partner, Rechtsanwälte Günther and lawyer for the plaintiff in Lliuya v RWE.
- Sophie Marjanac: Lead, Climate Accountability, ClientEarth.
- Dr Noah Walker-Crawford: Research Fellow, University College London, and External Advisor for climate litigation, Germanwatch.
The webinar will be moderated by Inga Menke from Climate Analytics.
