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Brown coal power plant Neurath near Grevenbroich
Photo: Jochen Tack / IMAGO
»The danger assumed by the defendants on the basis of subjective perception is neither concrete nor present. Whether there will be climate changes has not been scientifically proven, causal connections between the individual human influences on the environment and climate phenomena are open.«
From a court record of the Cologne Higher Regional Court, text from the legal representation of the brown coal group RWE in 2006
In 2006, the German average temperature was 1.3 degrees higher than in the comparable period from 1961 to 1990, making 2006 the fifth warmest year since 1901, according to the German Weather Service.
This continued a trend that has demonstrably begun in the 19th century.
This came as no surprise: as early as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted in Rio in 1992, the explicit international goal of preventing “a dangerous anthropogenic disturbance of the climate system [caused by CO₂]” was formulated.
In 2006, however, RWE was allegedly not yet sure.
To date, the company makes a large part of its profits from the production of energy, which leads to the emission of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.
Twisting, covering up or completely denying facts is a tradition among manufacturers and sellers of carbon dioxide.
This week, a highly interesting specialist article by Geoffrey Supran, the German climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf and the science historian Naomi Oreskes was published in the top journal »Science«.
"Our results show that ExxonMobil was correctly and expertly predicting global warming in private and academic circles beginning in the late 1970s," it says.
The study is based on Exxon documents that journalists published back in 2015.
Lying and being lied to
So while the oil company's experts tried to share what they knew, ExxonMobil itself worked hard to deny these findings.
Methods such as "overemphasizing uncertainties, discounting climate models, mythological narratives of global cooling, feigning ignorance of the certainty of man-made warming, and denying the possibility that fossil fuels could lose value in a carbon-constrained world «.
So ExxonMobil has lied and been lied to for decades.
This is still the case today, only the strategies have changed.
A bit like RWE, right?
A current, particularly grotesque example of the methods of the fossil industry: the president of the next world climate conference COP28 in Dubai is to be a man named Sultan al-Jaber.
He is the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
That's no joke.
It's like using Pablo Escobar to fight the cocaine trade.
lobbying and disinformation
The fossil industries have collectively engaged in not only very expensive lobbying but also active disinformation for decades and very effectively.
If you point this out today, you sometimes hear from fans of fossils that it's »naive«.
One has to accept that corporations subordinate everything to their profit, in case of doubt also the truth (and the future of their children?).
The friends and relatives of the 133 people who died in the Ahr Valley disaster might see things differently, as do the many millions who are suffering from the floods in Pakistan that have been exacerbated by global warming, the victims of the current weather disasters in California - and so on.
Then in court
In the coming months, RWE is awaiting the oral hearing of a Peruvian farmer's lawsuit at the Higher Regional Court in Hamm.
The man fears that a glacial lake, which is constantly growing due to warming, will one day flood his home and land.
RWE is supposed to pay for the countermeasures because the group "is responsible for 0.47 percent of global climate change," as Roda Verheyen, the German lawyer for the Peruvian newspaper Die Zeit, said.
RWE is on the list of the 100 companies that have contributed the most to humankind's CO₂ emissions in their history.
To this day, the company operates two of the three largest CO₂ factories in Europe, the lignite-fired power plants in Neurath – where the coal from Garzweiler and Lützerath goes – and Niederaußem.
The RWE Weisweiler power plant is in fifth place on the European CO₂ charts.
Four more of the ten largest greenhouse gas emitters in the EU belong to another German group: LEAG.
The other three are in Poland.
Seven in one fell swoop
Seven of the ten largest CO₂ emitters in Europe are in Germany.
RWE is the largest carbon dioxide producer in Europe.
Keep this in mind when someone tries to tell you that Germany is a “pioneer in climate protection”.
Experts estimate that RWE will earn around half a billion euros a year from coal alone over the next few years.
Support for the lawsuit against the German group comes from science.
In early 2021, a study appeared in Nature Geoscience stating that it is “virtually certain (over 99% probability)” that the glacial melt above Lake Palcacocha in Peru is due to human-caused climate change.
Lying and covering up becomes more difficult.
According to the study, the risk of a major catastrophe has "substantially increased" due to global warming.
The rapid spread of the water also threatens Huaraz, a city of 120,000 people.
Exxon is already answering
The proceedings against RWE will probably drag on, lawyer Roda Verheyen assumes that it will end up before the Federal Court of Justice.
The negotiation is not about the fact that RWE lied: It is a civil lawsuit that is intended to hold someone who was responsible for the disaster to (financial) accountability.
The situation is different with a lawsuit against ExxonMobil: The Massachusetts state attorney's office is explicitly concerned with Exxon's lies and cover-up.
The new "Science" study will be read carefully there.
Legal climate activities have really gained momentum in recent years.
The London School of Economics currently counts around 2000 lawsuits related to climate change.
Some concern states, some companies.
A quarter of them come from the last three years.
Pulled over the table twice
There have already been initial successes: Royal Dutch Shell lost in the Netherlands and must now reduce its emissions by 45 percent by 2030.
In Germany, France and Belgium, courts have found that governments are failing to meet their climate commitments.
In Australia there were several judgments in connection with coal mines and forest fires, in Mexico Greenpeace won against the government, which did not want to meet its own climate goals.
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Christian Stocker
We are the experiment
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
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Decades of disinformation will probably one day catch up with those who profited from the catastrophe in legal terms.
The industry faces the same fate as the tobacco industry.
Until then, politicians should also be on their guard when negotiating with corporations like RWE.
German governments have probably been ripped off twice by RWE and Co. in the last decade: with the “coal phase-out compromise” under Angela Merkel and Peter Altmaier and, presumably, also with the traffic light deal around Lützerath.
German taxes will go straight into the pockets of RWE shareholders, even more CO₂ into the atmosphere.
Although coal-fired power is already becoming increasingly unprofitable.
You can't trust the fossil companies.
All the greenwashing doesn't change that either.
