ISLAMABAD: A group of 43 farmers from Pakistan’s flood-ravaged Sindh province has decided to file a climate justice lawsuit against two German companies, accusing them of contributing to the global greenhouse gas emissions they say worsened the catastrophic floods of 2022, a rights activist and a claimant said on Friday.
The planned legal action targets energy company RWE and cement manufacturer Heidelberg Materials, following a legal notice issued in late October that gave the firms until December to reach a settlement over an estimated $1.08 million in damages. Environmental campaigners describe both companies as major historical contributors to global emissions.
Heidelberg Materials confirmed last month that it had received the legal notice and was reviewing the claim. RWE has not responded.
The case follows the devastating monsoon floods of 2022, which killed more than 1,700 people, displaced around 33 million and caused economic losses exceeding $30 billion across Pakistan. Sindh was the hardest-hit province, with districts such as Dadu, Larkana and Jacobabad submerged for months.
The legal move comes as communities in climate-vulnerable countries increasingly seek accountability from multinational corporations for climate-related losses, amid growing scientific evidence linking extreme weather events to global warming driven largely by industrialized economies.
“The farmers in Sindh, affected by environmental devastation, have now decided to pursue legal action against two German companies for climate justice, which is a historic decision,” Nasir Mansoor, general secretary of Pakistan’s National Trade Union Federation (NTUF), told Arab News.
Mansoor said climate change should be treated as a labor and livelihoods issue, arguing that repeated environmental shocks were eroding rural employment, food security and social stability in one of Pakistan’s poorest regions.
Abdul Khaliq Leghari, a landowner from Khairpur Nathan Shah and one of the 43 claimants, said the floods permanently damaged his farmland. He lost 40 acres of rice and wheat crops, and his yields have since fallen by half.
“We not only suffered large-scale losses to crops and livestock during the floods, but we are still suffering these losses even now. This is not our fault; rather, it is the fault of companies like the German ones,” Leghari told Arab News.
“Clouds rain all over the world, but here the clouds burst. What is our fault in this? Those who have brought the climate to this point are becoming richer and richer, while we are becoming poorer and poorer,” he said, adding that the farmers were seeking not only compensation but action by major polluters to prevent further environmental damage.
At a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday, farmers and activists said Pakistan, which contributes less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, was paying a disproportionate price for industrial pollution generated elsewhere.
Mansoor said environmental degradation within Pakistan was accelerating, citing the rapid melting of 14,000 glaciers across three major mountain ranges and the loss of around 90 percent of the historic Indus Delta.
“The industrial model of capitalist development had brought the planet to the brink of destruction,” Mansoor said, adding that current generations had a narrowing window to prevent irreversible damage.
The litigation is being supported by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the HANDS Welfare Foundation. Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed of HANDS told reporters that the 2022 floods were driven by global warming rather than being a purely natural disaster.
Lawyers involved in the case say it aims to link climate science with human rights law. While RWE and Heidelberg Materials have been identified in “carbon majors” research as significant historical emitters, neither company has accepted liability for the damages claimed in Sindh.
Miriam Saage-Maab, a German constitutional lawyer and a representative of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), said the two firms were selected because they are among Germany’s major historical carbon dioxide emitters and are emblematic of the country’s fossil fuel-based economic model that has contributed to the climate crisis.
She said German civil law recognizes the principle of “joint and several liability,” under which it is legally permissible to hold one or more entities accountable for harm caused collectively by many contributors.
“If there are several people or several entities responsible for a harm, it is legitimate to only bring to court one or two of them, representing that the whole group of those have contributed to a harm,” Saage-Maab told Arab News.
She added that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming regardless of where they are produced, intensifying extreme weather events worldwide.
“The CO2 emissions emitted in Germany, Europe or elsewhere have contributed to a warming climate, and this warming climate enabled the 2022 floods,” she said, describing this link as the core causal argument behind the lawsuit.
