At least 43 farmers from Pakistan’s southern Sindh province have issued formal legal notices to German energy giant RWE and cement-producer Heidelberg Materials, claiming €1 million in compensation for losses suffered during catastrophic floods in 2022, trade union officials said on Saturday.
The notices, dispatched on Oct. 28 and serving as a precursor to legal action planned for Dec. unless a settlement is reached, represent one of the first attempts by agriculturalists in Pakistan to hold major international carbon-emitting firms accountable for climate-driven damage.
Pakistan ranks among countries most vulnerable to climate change, despite contributing less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, the country witnessed deadly floods that killed over 1,700 people, displaced another 33 million and caused more than 30 billion losses.
Pakistani officials have said that they had to take loans to rebuild areas devastated by adverse weather phenomena, lamenting a lack of cooperation by heavily industrialized, developed nations which they say have exacerbated the climate crisis in the world.
“The farmers from Sindh have sent a legal notice to RWE and Heidelberg to pay fair share of compensation of what we estimate as €1 million in damages,” said Nasir Mansoor, general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) in Pakistan.
The farmers are based in Jacobabad, Dadu and Larkana districts of Sindh, a region among the hardest hit in the 2022 floods.
Speaking at a press conference this week, farmers, civil-society representatives and their legal counsel outlined the basis of their €1 million claim, saying RWE and Heidelberg Materials had been significant contributors to human-induced climate change.
“RWE and Heidelberg have known for decades that their polluting practices would bring harm to people, yet they have refused to act,” Clara Gonzales of the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) addressed press conference.
The NTUF and local non-government organization HANDS Welfare Foundation, which have worked with Sindh farmers since 2010, as well as the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) are backing the claimants, emphasizing that legal action marks an emerging front in global climate-justice litigation.
Neither RWE nor Heidelberg Materials responded to Arab News’ requests for comment by the time of this story’s publication. RWE is one of Europe’s largest electricity producers, while Heidelberg Materials is a leading cement manufacturer globally, both identified in “carbon majors” studies as significant historical emitters.
“Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the political disaster has turned into a climate disaster,” said Karin Zennig, a climate-justice campaigner at the Medico International aid agency.
“Entire regions of the world are still experiencing substantial destruction to their livelihoods. Those least responsible for the climate crisis are struggling to survive, as we can see in Pakistan.”
Inayat Laghari, one of the claimants who is a farmer in Khairpur Nathan Shah, said his entire 12-acre rice crop was destroyed in the 2022 floods, followed by a failed wheat harvest.
“It wasn’t just a crop that was lost; it was our children’s needs, their dreams, and our livelihood for the whole year that went under with the water,” he said.
A father of eight children, including three daughters, Laghari also lost multiple cows and goats to the catastrophic deluges.
“My cousin, Asyia, couldn’t cope with her loss, she passed away from the shock,” he said, recalling the toll the disaster took on his extended family.
“The foundations of the climate crisis that caused this catastrophe were laid by big corporations. They should be the ones to compensate us for our losses.”
The legal notice sent to RWE and Heidelberg Materials seeks acknowledgment of liability and payment of what the claimants describe as their “fair share” of damages. Lawyers acting for the farmers estimate the total damages at about €1 million and say the December timeline will see the case filed in court if no settlement is reached.
Ghulam Ullah from the village of Deed Sharif in Dadu is among the landowners who suffered losses and is now one of the claimants. A father of four sons and four daughters, he had cultivated rice on 24 acres, cotton on 12 acres, and chili on 2 acres, all of which were not only destroyed in the floods but also could not be replanted the following year. He also suffered heavy losses of livestock.