Full Description
Saúl Luciano Lliuya guides tours in the mountains and his family grow corn, wheat, barley, and potatoes on their farm in Huaraz, Peru, a community of more than 100,000 people in the Andes near Palcacocha, a glacial lake. Palcacocha, however, is growing, as is the major flood risk to Huaraz. Climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases continues to melt the Peruvian glaciers—greenhouse gases that come from corporate polluters not just in Peru, but across the industrialized world. So, Luciano Lliuya decided to sue. Although the German energy company RWE has never operated in Peru, Luciano Lliuya sought to hold the company, which uses coal power generation, liable for damages in a groundbreaking case that, despite being dismissed, established that major emitters can be held liable for climate harms. In The Climate Trial, anthropologist Noah Walker-Crawford draws on years of personal involvement with the lawsuit and extensive fieldwork in Peru and Germany to follow the people, legal strategies, scientific arguments, and political tensions that have shaped the trial. More than a courtroom drama, The Climate Trial is a deeply human story about moral responsibility in a changing world and what it means to be a "good neighbor" while living thousands of miles away.
Contents
Abbreviations and Glossary xi
Key Characters xiii
Introduction: Climate Justice in Court 1
Part I. Making a Climate Change Lawsuit
1. Glaciers Melt into the Courtroom 21
2. David and Goliath in the Courtroom 34
Interlude 1: Andean Life in an Uncertain Climate 53
3. The Politics of Personhood 57
Part II. Causality in the Courtroom
4. Truth and Responsibility in the Courtroom 75
Interlude 2: Courtroom Interrogation 88
5. Tracing Emissions 90
Interlude 3: Climate Skeptics at Large 97
6. Modeling the Global Climate 99
7. Measuring Palcacocha 110
Part III. Melting Glaciers Play Politics
8. Glacial Politics 129
9. Engineering in a Sentient Environment 146
Interlude 4: Unexpected Stardom 161
Conclusion: Changing the Legal Climate 163
Afterword 181
Acknowledgments 183
Notes 187
References 193
Index 213
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