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Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that the country’s 2019 climate protection law, which sets out emissions cuts over the next decade and beyond, was partly “unconstitutional” because it shifted the climate burden of making painful reductions to future generations.
The decision requires the government to further detail emission reduction targets after 2030 by the end of next year, and rips up the governing coalition’s carefully structured climate compromise just months before September’s federal election.
Germany committed to cutting emissions by 55 percent by 2030, and has a long-term goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. However, the country will have to reduce emissions much more deeply after 2030 to hit that target, thanks to tougher EU goals.
The court ruled that the law wasn’t in line with constitutional rights because “sufficient measures for further emission reductions after 2031 are missing,” which puts an improper burden on people after 2030.
It found the 2019 law violated their right to freedom because it “postponed high emission reduction burdens irreversibly to the period after 2030” to meet the obligations under the Paris Agreement. The court ruled that necessary and drastic future emissions cuts would “potentially affect any freedom because nearly all areas of human life are connected to emissions, and as such threatened drastic limitations [to their freedom] after 2030.”
The law for the first time set binding emissions reduction targets for the next decade, setting out annual carbon budgets for the energy, industry, transport, building and agriculture sectors.
Thursday’s ruling is a victory for the Fridays for Future movement and other youth activists who filed the lawsuit and called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to speed up emissions cuts.
“A HUGE WIN FOR THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT!” tweeted Luisa Neubauer, one of the leading figures of the movement who had filed the constitutional complaint with several other young activists last year. “One year ago, we filed a case against the German government & its climate law. Today, the German constitutional court has decided that climate justice is a fundamental right. Today’s inaction mustn’t harm our freedom & rights in the future.”
The ruling complicates the political prospects of Merkel’s conservative bloc, which is trying to halt surging support for the Greens ahead of September’s federal election.
Political fallout
It also highlights tensions in the governing coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their junior partner Social Democrats (SPD). While Christian Democrat Economy Minister Peter Altmaier called the judgment “epochal” for climate protection and youth rights, SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz lashed out at his coalition partner for “having blocked what the Constitutional Court has now demanded” in the past.
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze, also with the SPD, said in a statement that the decision gave “vital momentum to the tough decisions that are ahead of us,” but added that the court had validated the climate law’s mechanism of setting annual emissions targets.
When the 2019 law was being debated, it triggered tough battles within the government over concerns that it would saddle crucial sectors like the auto industry — overseen by conservative ministers — with additional costs. But that compromise is now in tatters. “I would have liked a further target for the 30-ies, but there was no majority in favor. In that sense, it’s good that the Constitutional Court excludes such cop-outs in the future,” Schulze said.
She added she would propose updates to the climate law this summer.
Although the court found that there were problems with the climate law, it did not find that the government had breached its obligation to protect the plaintiffs against the perils of climate change — another one of the complaints filed by the campaigners.
Roda Verheyen, the lawyer representing the young activists, said the court had set a “globally impressive new standard for climate protection as a human right … and interpreted basic rights in an inter-generationally just way.”
The German decision is one of a series of recent rulings where courts have found governments are lagging in combating climate change. In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands found that the government hadn’t gone far enough in reducing emissions and imposed steeper cuts.
Earlier this year, a Paris administrative court ruled that the French government wasn’t doing enough to curb greenhouse gases.
This article is part of POLITICO’s Sustainability Pro service, which dives deep into sustainability issues across all sectors, including: circular economy, waste and the plastics strategy, chemicals and more. For a complimentary trial, email [email protected] mentioning Sustainability.
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