Fight against the federal government against the climate: – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Three German families filed a lawsuit with the Greenpeace Environmental Defense Organization in the Berlin Administrative Court to compel the federal government to comply with the climate protection goal for 2020. This brings SPIEGEL in its current issue.

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Number 44/2018

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The government has "put an end to its actions", says the request, "without legal basis and without sufficient justification". The applicants consider that this inaction on climate protection is an unacceptable interference with their fundamental rights to "life and health", "freedom of occupation" and "property rights". In addition, Merkel's cabinet neglects its duty to protect citizens. (Read all history in the new SPIEGEL here.)

"The federal government has simply abandoned the 2020 goal," said the plaintiff's lawyer Roda Verheyen of Hamburg. In 2007, the federal government decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. However, according to the current coalition agreement , the 2020 goal should only be achieved "as much as possible". The current federal government's climate protection report only forecasts a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of about 32%.

The three complainants are organic farmers already affected by the effects of climate change. The plantations of fruit farmer Claus Blohm and his children from the Old Country near Hamburg are therefore increasingly attacked by plant pests. Silke and Jörg Backsen from Pellworm and the Lütke Schwienhorst family from southern Brandenburg complain of poor harvests caused by bad weather and worry about the health and nutrition of their animals.

"Even here in Germany, climate change is already threatening the population, in an existential way," says Anike Peters, climate scientist at Greenpeace. "We no longer want to accept the inaction of the federal government, especially since it would be quite possible to achieve the goals of climate protection."

Billions in the federal budget

Eleven years ago, the first government led by Merkel had decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. With the "Plan of 2050 "climate protection, this target was completed in 2016 by targets for 2030 (minus 55%), 2040 (minus 70%) and 2050 (minus 80 to 95%).

But the big goals are barely enough. Shyness could even be very expensive, as Germany has to buy high emission rights because of missed CO2 targets. By 2020, costs of two billion euros could be added to the federal budget. For the next decade, the federal government even threatens a 60 billion euro budget risk, calculated the Agora Energy Transition Agency.

The central question that the Berlin court must now examine: is it justifiable when the ambition of the state falls? While EU climate protection targets are legally binding and complaints have already been lodged, Germany's commitments have never been adopted. The plaintiff's lawyer, Verheyen, still considers them valid. We could not argue with climate protection for eleven years and then claim that nothing had happened.