Why a claim against the “carbon majors”
In the summer of 2022, Pakistan was in ruins in the wake of what is likely still the largest climate-induced disaster to date. The floods inundated a third of the country for a period of months and destroyed the livelihoods of millions of people. The people of Pakistan are paying a heavy climate price: even though historically the country has contributed less than 1% of global GHG emissions, it ranks 1st among the top ten countries most affected by extreme weather events in 2022 according to the Global Climate Risk Index. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and floods regularly strike the country. In Pakistan, the destructive impacts of the climate crisis have long become normalized, and it is only a matter of time before they happen again
During the 2022 floods, at least 33 million people were displaced and forced to spend months on rooftops or elevated areas where they had found refuge – living without electricity in makeshift tents, with few resources. The province of Sindh, where the claimants are from, suffered the heaviest losses, sustaining two-thirds of the total damage. Many districts were still submerged more than a year after the floods. In the hundreds of square kilometers covered by standing water, mosquito populations exploded, spreading diseases such as malaria and dengue fever throughout the region.
Today, three years later, the damage is still apparent: many houses have walls missing. Grain reserves and seed banks were also destroyed in 2022, depriving farmers of a hard-earned basic independence from market prices and the influence of large landowners.
Millions of farm laborers and smallholder farmers in Sindh have lost their livelihoods. Failed harvests have pushed them into debt. They can no longer afford to send their children to school, have reduced the number of meals they eat, and are forced to scrape together a living as day laborers under the most precarious conditions. The number of people below the poverty line in Pakistan has risen from 55 million to 95 million. These circumstances have set the country back more than a decade in its development.
Floods are common in Pakistan during the monsoon season, but scientific studies show that anthropogenic global warming is increasing both their frequency and intensity. This corresponds to findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which also predict a continued rise in extreme weather events. At the same time, societal capacities for preparedness, protection, reconstruction, and disaster response erode with each new catastrophe, pushing more people ever closer to the brink of survival. Studies forecast that climate change could cause Pakistan’s economic output to drop by up to 20 percent in the coming decades.
In 2022, thousands of kilometers of roads, bridges, health facilities, and schools were also destroyed in Pakistan in addition to private property. Addressing damage on this scale requires resources that are beyond the capacity of individuals and society as a whole to furnish. Even the reconstruction of infrastructure for bare essentials will cost many billions of US dollars. Already on the edge of national bankruptcy before the floods, Pakistan cannot possibly sustain the financial burden required for reconstruction. Even though the government’s ability to manage disaster response has long been criticized by aid organizations and civil society, the sheer scale of resources necessary for prevention and adaptation measures is more than can be realistically secured.
At the international level, little is likely to change this state of affairs. Stalled negotiations over a global fund for climate damage and the financing of adaptation measures have so far offered neither Pakistan nor the affected farmers in the Sindh region any tangible prospects for relief. Like international aid funds, they cover, at best, only a fraction of the damage incurred.
Pakistan has thus become a case study for the destructive potential of the climate crisis – a preview of a future that could threaten other regions with similar peril as global warming progresses.
The devastation in the country underscores a massive imbalance between those responsible and those who suffer, which demonstrates an urgent need for rights-based responses. Climate justice can only exist if those who cause the damage are held accountable.
An exemplary case
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change at the time, described Pakistan in 2022 as the “ground zero” of the ecological disaster. What happened in southern Pakistan in 2022 is likely the largest climate catastrophe to date caused by humans—and in particular by a few major emitters. Yet even ten years after the Paris Agreement, which set the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, global CO₂ emissions continue to rise, while climate crisis–induced damage is escalating worldwide.
Those who suffer the most are primarily people and regions in the Global South, such as farmers in Pakistan, even though they have contributed the least to global emissions. At the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Sherry Rehman did not call for international aid but demanded full reparations from the countries and companies responsible for the damage already experienced and the harm yet to come.
Although past UN Climate Change Conferences have repeatedly agreed on providing financial support for climate adaptation and for addressing climate-related damages (loss and damage funds), Pakistan has so far received scarcely any of the promised aid that is so urgently required. The affected communities in Sindh are still waiting for assistance.
With climate fund negotiations yielding very little so far, people in the regions most affected by climate disasters have almost no option but to pursue legal action to highlight their reality and defend their rights.
“Without climate justice, the Global South will not survive this century,” said Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto.
This is why medico international and ECCHR support the affected farmers in their compensation claim against RWE and Heidelberg Materials. True climate justice will only happen if the voices and perspectives of affected communities are heard.
FAQ
The case is about justice for the 43 farmers. It seeks to address real damage done to real people, who are seeking monetary compensation from those who caused and contributed to the damage. For medico international and ECCHR the aim is to support the farmers from Sindh in seeking accountability for the rights violations they have suffered as a result of the climate crisis.
The devastation caused by the 2022 floods in Pakistan stands as a stark reminder of how deeply climate-related damage can affect both individuals and entire societies. The compensation claim lodged by Pakistani farmers highlights the perspectives of those most affected by the crisis and carries their fight for justice to those responsible in Germany.
Their case will bring a new voice in a broader, transnational demand for a global legal framework that holds the perpetrators of the climate crisis accountable. Major polluters must take responsibility for the consequences of the damage their actions have caused.
The claim is addressed to RWE, one of the largest electricity producers in Europe, and Heidelberg Materials, one of the major cement producers worldwide.
The term “Carbon Majors” refers to companies that have contributed significantly to climate change. The term was coined by studies conducted by the Climate Accountability Institute, which found that just over 100 companies are responsible for nearly 70% of global historical industrial greenhouse gas emissions. RWE and Heidelberg Materials are two of them. As Carbon Majors, they are responsible for a significant proportion of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
Historically, both companies are among the top carbon emitters worldwide and among the two biggest polluters with headquarters and major operations in Germany. The latest studies utilizing the Carbon Majors methodology show that RWE is responsible for at least 0.68% and Heidelberg Materials 0.12% of global industrial emissions since 1965.
Major corporate emitters have thus far managed to avoid genuine accountability. Holding them to account in court is the only avenue left to ensure that those who contributed significantly to the crisis bear their fair share of its costs, instead of leaving all these costs to affected communities.
The case builds upon the legal foundations established in the Saúl Luciano Lliuya v. RWE case, where a German court accepted in principle that a major emitter could be held liable for climate-related damages abroad.
All 43 farmers involved come from Sindh Province, the region in southern Pakistan most affected by the unprecedented floods of 2022. They live in three different districts: Jacobabad, Dadu and Larkana. Their survival is based on the crops they produce on their small plots of land and they struggle to maintain their independence from large landowners and agricultural corporations. They have been exposed to changing weather patterns and the destruction of their livelihoods caused by climate change for many years.
The 43 farmers demanding compensation from RWE and Heidelberg Materials are supported by 10,000 farmers from their village communities. Their fight for climate justice highlights the situation of 33 million people affected by the 2022 flood disaster in Pakistan, as well as many other communities around the world that are already impacted by the climate crisis.
The 43 farmers in Pakistan are not alone facing RWE and Heidelberg Materials. More than 10,000 people in their villages are supporting them. They are assisted locally by the socio-medical aid organization HANDS Welfare Foundation and the trade-union federation NTUF.
The National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) empowers farmers in conflicts on land and labor rights. The HANDS Welfare Foundation works in rural Sindh communities on the transition to climate-adapted agriculture and supports village self-organization.
For decades, both organizations, supported by medico international, have been working to improve working and living conditions in Pakistan. In their pursuit of justice, medico international and the human rights organization ECCHR stand firmly by their side.
There is a broader struggle for climate justice, in which the people of Pakistan are also fighting, beyond the legal arena, to safeguard their livelihoods. They are combining legal action with political demands for support in reconstruction, food sovereignty, and debt relief.
Farmers are directly affected by the changing living conditions and the growing impossibility of sustaining life in their region. Without justice, their future prospects will become increasingly bleak.
At the same time, they are aware that their villages are only a few of many worldwide that are exposed to the same devastation in the context of the climate crisis: Many people in Pakistan, and across the world are threatened in their existence and human rights by the destructive fossil fuel based economic model and the climate crisis.
All people have the same right to live in dignity and self-determination, and to a healthy environment that makes this possible. Yet the impacts of the climate crisis are eroding these very foundations. The burden of climate-related damage is far from evenly shared: those who have contributed least to global warming are often the ones who suffer its effects most severely. The main culprits and beneficiaries of global warming—high-emission corporations and industrialised nations—are typically less affected and possess far greater means to shield themselves from disaster. But the climate crisis is not a natural phenomenon; it has perpetrators and profiteers who must be held accountable.
Taking the “polluter pays” principle seriously means recognizing their particular responsibility—not only to drastically and rapidly reduce emissions, but also to address the consequences of the crisis. This includes both material and immaterial damage, as well as climate-related human rights violations. Ultimately, climate justice means dismantling the structures that perpetuate inequality and injustice.
The Pakistan climate cost case is part of a growing movement for climate justice worldwide. Several actions have been filed for climate reparations against major polluters.
Most recently, on 23 October 2025, the Odette case was launched: 67 Odette typhoon survivors from island communities in the Philippines sent a formal notice to the fossil fuel company Shell demanding financial compensation for the losses and damage they experienced under Odette. It is an unprecedented lawsuit in the UK and globally, as the first civil claim to directly link polluting companies to deaths and personal injuries that have already happened in the global south.
ECCHR is already supporting residents of Pari Island in their lawsuit filed in Switzerland against HOLCIM. After a hearing that took place 3 September 2025 before the court of Zug, a decision on the admissibility of the case is expected to be reached soon.
In Belgium, through the farmer case, a farmer is asking the court to demand TotalEnergies to repair the damage he has suffered and make a financial contribution to the green transition. He is also asking judges to oblige the company to move away from fossil fuels in order to prevent future damage.
In Germany, the 28 May 2025 decision in the Saúl Luciano Lliuya v. RWE case confirmed the legal principle that major emitters can be liable for transboundary harms.
For more information on the legal claim, see ECCHR case page.
Solidarity matters. The Pakistani farmers will need plenty of it as they embark on this legal battle.
Their country has been hit especially hard by the impacts of the climate crisis, yet they know many others are facing the same fate. When people, organizations and initiatives share their story, talk about their struggle and spread the message, this support makes a difference.
Information materials about the case are available free of charge in English and German and can also be shared on social media. [links provided]. medico international and ECCHR, the supporting organizations in Germany, are available for talks and events.
Donations are also welcome, and they help fund medico international’s ongoing work in Pakistan, supporting community-led climate adaptation, education, and reconstruction projects.