气候变化领域集成服务门户

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THE CORDILLERA BLANCA, Peru Once, this was where Sa l Luciano Lliuya came to find peace. The mountain s pristine beauty ensured his livelihood as a guide; its steady stream of fresh water sustained his family farm. The everlasting ice that gleamed from its rugged crest spoke of a world in balance.

But on this May morning, Luciano Lliuya surveyed Nevado Palcaraju with his eyes narrowed, his forehead creased. The glacier was almost gone, transformed by rising temperatures from solid ice into a large, unstable lagoon. At any moment, an avalanche or rockslide could cause the turquoise meltwater to surge over its banks, hurtle down the mountainside and deluge the city of Huaraz, where he and some 120,000 others lived.

Muy pensativo, Luciano Lliuya described his mood in Spanish. Overthinking. Under pressure.

For seven years, Luciano Lliuya has waged a lawsuit against the German energy company RWE part of a growing cohort of activists who have turned to the courts for climate justice as political solutions remain out of reach.

Citing scientific studies that link pollution from power plants to the retreat of Palcaraju s glacier, Luciano Lliuya argues that the energy giant should help pay for measures to prevent a catastrophic flood. The company s lawyers counter that all of its operations were legal, and that the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts is too complex for any single entity to be held responsible.

Now the court had come to Peru to collect on-the-ground evidence a global first for any climate case.

In the next few days, a cadre of German judges and technical experts would walk the streets of Huaraz and view the homes that could be inundated. They would ascend the rutted road to Palcaraju, examining the glacier from the very spot where Luciano Lliuya stood.

FROM TOP: Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide who filed a lawsuit against the German energy company RWE, visits Laguna Palcacocha in Huaraz, Peru, on May 23. An overhead view of the siphons installed in the lagoon to reduce the danger of flooding in Huaraz. Workers examine the siphons at Laguna Palcacocha. Luciano Lliuya worries that the melting of the snow-capped Palcaraju glacier could cause an avalanche or rockslide at any moment.

If the judges saw this place the way he saw it, if they were convinced by Luciano Lliuya s claims, it would mark a breakthrough in the burgeoning realm of climate litigation. Success in Huaraz would mean that major polluters anywhere may be liable for the increasingly disastrous consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, experts say. It could pave the way for more lawsuits from developing nations that did little to cause climate change, but are bearing the brunt of its impacts. It might force rich countries and giant corporations to reconsider the risks of relying on fossil fuels, and empower those on the front lines of warming to seek restitution for what they have lost.

Luciano Lliuya looked again across the water, where the remains of Palcaraju glacier still clung to the cliffs above the lagoon. So much depended on that precarious balance: His livelihood. His home. Possibly even the planet.

Then there was a low rumble, and a puff of white billowed from the top of the glacier an avalanche. It was minor, not powerful enough to even ruffle the surface of the lake. But the worry in Luciano Lliuya s eyes deepened.

V monos, he said. Let s go.

If I imagine that the mountain is a person, and it felt like it was being affected, it would also go to court, make these demands.

Sa l Luciano Lliuya, plaintiff in lawsuit against RWE

In the cooler climate of a bygone era, the Palcaraju glacier resembled a river of ice. It flowed inexorably from the mountain s crest, gouging a bowl-shaped basin out of the rock and pushing debris into a rubble pile called a moraine.

But as the planet warms, the glacier is retreating. A vast lake, dubbed Palcacocha, has formed in the empty basin. The moraine acts as a dam, stopping the water from spilling into the valley below.

For now.

An avalanche could touch off a disaster, according to a 2016 study that modeled how a glacial lake outburst flood at Laguna Palcacocha might unfold.

Rock and ice would tumble from the deteriorating glacier and weakened mountain slope, falling hundreds of feet before plunging into the deepest part of the lagoon.

The impact would send a massive wave rolling toward the opposite shore. As it reached shallower waters, the wave would grow taller, much the way a tsunami gets bigger as it approaches a beach.

By the time it crossed the lagoon, the wave from a large avalanche would loom 70 feet above the top of the moraine. Nearly 2 million cubic meters of water would go crashing down the mountainside. Soil, boulders and even trees would get mixed up in the flood, adding to its tremendous force. Within an hour, the torrent would arrive at the outskirts of Huaraz.

Some 50,000 people, including Luciano Lliuya, live in the high hazard zone on the banks of the Quilcay River. Here, the inundation would be intense enough to demolish the small brick and adobe homes.

We are speaking about a flood that destroys everything said Cesar Portocarrero, 75, a civil engineer from Huaraz who contributed to the 2016 study. Not only inundates. Not only covers with water. It destroys everything in its path.

A newly installed early warning system at the lagoon should set off sirens around the city, giving people about 20 minutes to evacuate. Anyone who doesn t escape before the deluge hits would be unlikely to survive.

Those who make their homes near the Cordillera Blanca, the ice-capped white range that looms above Huaraz, have always recognized this risk. To dwell in the shadow of Peru s tallest mountains is to live with the possibility of disaster. The region boasts Earth s largest concentration of tropical glaciers high-altitude ice masses that are unpredictable at the best of times, but have become increasingly fragile as the planet warms.

In 1941, a glacial lake outburst flood from Palcacocha killed an estimated 1,800 people about one third of Huaraz s residents at the time. Survivors recall seeing trees slam into houses like battering rams, blasting holes in walls of brick and stone. The path of destruction extended all the way to the coast, 100 miles away.

A few years later, a flood above the nearby archaeological site of Chav n de Hu ntar killed 500 people and demolished millennia-old artifacts. Then another outburst wiped out a newly built hydroelectric station. In 1970, an earthquake destabilized the glacier on Peru s tallest mountain, unleashing an avalanche that engulfed the entire city of Yungay. Some 20,000 people were buried. Just 400 residents survived.

FROM TOP: (The Washington Post) Those who make their homes near the Cordillera Blanca, the ice-capped “white range” that looms above Huaraz, have always recognized the risk of living there. Huaraz is home to about 120,000 people. The Nueva Florida neighborhood in Huaraz runs a high risk of flooding because of its proximity to the Quilcay River.

The crises helped push Peru s government to establish a federal glaciology unit that would shore up the country s most dangerous glacial lakes.

We were the pioneers in the world, said Portocarrero, a former director of the unit who helped build the security system at Laguna Palcacocha in 1973.

Portocarrero described how workers dug drainage channels to empty some of the water from the lagoon and bolstered the moraine with two 20-foot-high stone-covered dams. By creating about 25 feet of freeboard between the water surface and the top of the dam, the measures reduced the chance of an overflow.

As decades passed without another deadly outburst, disasters like the 1941 flood faded into distant memory. In 1996, during a period of decentralization, Peru disbanded its federal glaciology unit. Its responsibilities were shifted to the regional governments, though they rarely had the resources or expertise to address dangerous lakes.

At the time, few in Huaraz worried about the change. They believed that Palcacocha was already under control. They thought they were safe.

If the lake bursts, it will destroy the city. It would kill many people and the economy will go down. The threat is real. It s real.

Cesar Portocarrero, civil engineer

In 2009, scientists working on a new underwater map of Laguna Palcacocha made a terrifying discovery: Since the security system was first installed, the lake had swelled to 34 times its former volume. It was now even bigger than it had been before the 1941 disaster.

Although the drainage system prevented the water level from rising too high, the glacier s retreat allowed the lagoon to become much longer, creating potential runway for a massive wave. If a major avalanche occurred, the dams would not be able to hold back the swollen lake.