The concrete company Holcim is one of the world’s largest CO2 emitters. Four Indonesians have now sued it for damages and climate protection.
The Swiss Cantonal Court of Zug has accepted a climate lawsuit filed by four Indonesians against the concrete company Holcim. This clears the way for the first civil climate trial in Switzerland. “We are very pleased. This decision gives us the strength to continue our fight,” said Ibu Asmania, one of the plaintiffs.
The four plaintiffs live on Pari Island in Indonesia, which is threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Ibu Asmania, Mr. Arif, Mr. Edi and Mr. Bobby report increasingly salty wells as well as destroyed houses and seaweed farms after floods. They want Holcim to pay them damages and to provide assistance in adapting to the warming world, and to significantly reduce its CO₂ emissions.
Holcim is one of the world’s largest cement producers and, according to calculations by the Carbon Majors project, emitted 3.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ between 1990 and 2023 — roughly one in every five hundred CO₂ molecules released into the atmosphere since the industrial era through the burning of fossil fuels and cement production.
Court: Every Contribution to Climate Protection Is Indispensable
Holcim itself argued, according to the court records, that climate protection is a political issue and should therefore not be litigated in court. It also claimed that its share in climate change is marginal and that Pari Island is already “not salvageable.”
The cantonal court rejects these objections: judicial decisions do not replace democratically legitimised climate protection policy. Every contribution is “indispensable in the fight against climate change,” even if Holcim is not solely responsible for global warming. A request by left Holcim unanswered.
In Germany, a similar case ended in May. The Higher Regional Court Hamm ruled that the energy company RWE does not have to pay a Peruvian farmer money for adapting to climate change, but could be held responsible in other cases. The Peruvian saw his house endangered by the swelling of a glacier lake. The trial lasted eight years — observers expect a similarly long duration for the Holcim case.
Transparency note: In an earlier version of this text, the value of 3,242 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents was mistakenly given as 3.2 million tonnes. The correct figure is 3.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalents.
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