The Climate Trial: Law and Justice on a Melting Planet

Hosted in collaboration with the LSE Department of Anthropology, the Global School of Sustainability and ASA Climate Anthropology Network

In May 2025, a German court ruled for the first time anywhere in the world that major corporate emitters can in principle be held liable for their contribution to climate change harms. The case — Lliuya v. RWE — made headlines globally. But the full story of how this landmark lawsuit was built over a decade has never been told.

Join us for the launch of The Climate Trial, a new book by Noah Walker-Crawford that provides the first inside account of one of the most significant climate lawsuits ever brought. Walker-Crawford helped initiate the case in 2014, served as interpreter and scientific adviser to the plaintiff’s legal team, and went on to study the lawsuit as an anthropologist. The result is a book that moves between German courtrooms, UN climate summits, and melting glaciers in the Peruvian Andes, revealing what climate justice looks like in practice: the legal strategy, the science, the corporate response, and the deeply personal motivations of a Peruvian farmer who stayed the course for a decade because he felt the mountains were suffering.

The event will open with introductory remarks from Dr Mareike Winchell (LSE Department of Anthropology), followed by a video message from Saúl Luciano Lliuya, the plaintiff in the case, and a presentation from the author. A panel of respondents will then explore the book’s themes from the perspectives of law, climate science, and anthropology, followed by an open discussion with the audience.

The panel brings together people with direct connections to the book’s subject matter: Roda Verheyen, the lawyer who represented Luciano Lliuya throughout the case; Friederike Otto, whose field of climate change attribution science was at the centre of the evidentiary arguments in the courtroom; and Hannah Knox, whose anthropological work on climate and environmental governance speaks directly to the book’s analysis. The discussion will be chaired by Joana Setzer, a leading researcher on climate litigation.

Following the discussion, guests are welcome to join a reception where they can collect copies of the book and have them signed by the author.

Meet our speakers & chair

Speakers

Dr Noah Walker-Crawford is a researcher at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. He studies climate litigation from a socio-legal perspective and leads the project ‘Making the evidence count: Climate Science in the Courtroom.’ He helped initiate Lliuya v. RWE in 2014 and played a key role in developing the case’s evidentiary strategy. The Climate Trial is his first book.

Dr Roda Verheyen is an environmental lawyer based in Hamburg, Germany. She has led major climate case against both governments and corporations. She represented Saúl Luciano Lliuya throughout the proceedings against RWE.

Professor Friederike Otto is Professor of Climate Science at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. She leads World Weather Attribution, an international effort to analyse the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, and was a lead author on the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

Professor Hannah Knox is Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on the anthropology of technology, infrastructure, and climate change. Her books include Thinking Like a Climate: Governing a City in Times of Environmental Change.

Chair

Dr Joana Setzer is Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute. She leads the Climate Change Laws of the World project, the most comprehensive global resource on climate policy, and co-chairs the Climate Accountability working group of the Climate Social Science Network.

Introduction: Dr Mareike Winchell (LSE Department of Anthropology)

How to attend – in person

To attend this event in person, please register in advance here.

How to attend – online

To attend this event via Zoom, please register in advance here.