In Germany some climate activist groups, including Fridays For Future and Greenpeace, have appealed to the Constitutional Court against changes to the law regulating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Activists say these changes, adopted by the government in April, have made the law less effective and more difficult to enforce. They refer to the precedent of 2021 when, after an appeal by the same associations, the German Constitutional Court deemed the measures adopted up to then inadequate.
The law requires Germany to reach a condition of carbon neutrality by 2045, in which for every ton of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere the same is removed, setting objectives for reducing emissions: 65 percent by 2030 and 88 percent by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. In April, however, the social democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz had agreed to remove the specific limits established for the various economic sectors under pressure from the Liberals (FDP), who together with the Greens and his party (SPD) are part of the government majority.
Activists contest this change, which was part of the government’s coalition contract and was approved by parliament at the end of April despite opposition from some Greens. “The amendments make it more difficult to meet the objectives set on paper,” he said Guardian Liz Hicks, a researcher at the University of Münster. Before the reform, the ministries responsible for a sector that had exceeded the emission limits were required to immediately present a recovery plan with detailed measures. This obligation has been removed.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, with Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens and Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Liberals. (Michele Tantussi/Getty Images)
According to NGOs and analysts, also due to the changes, Germany risks not reaching its carbon neutrality objectives. With the new legislation, instead of evaluating the progress in reducing emissions of individual economic sectors such as transport, construction or manufacturing, only the overall data for the entire country will be evaluated.
This, according to supporters of the reform, would allow a more efficient decarbonization process, in which the country’s most virtuous sectors can reduce emissions more quickly; according to environmentalists and critics, however, it would allow the most polluting economic sectors to continue to be so. Highly impactful sectors such as automotive or agriculture, for example, will be able to exceed the limits without this constituting a violation, and will therefore be able to decarbonize more slowly.
Under the new rule, only if the overall carbon neutrality target is not met for two years in a row will the government be obliged to present a plan to get back on track.
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Already a month before the reform, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) had estimated that the country was in line with the national objectives set for 2030, but less so with those for 2040, and above all below those set by the European Union for highly polluting sectors such as transport, construction and agriculture, where emissions should be halved.
The FDP Liberals are the most conservative of the parties in Scholz’s coalition, they control two important ministries such as Transport and Finance, and their consensus has dropped in the polls to the point that, if voting were held today, they would risk not exceeding the threshold of 5 percent. This is not the first time they have created problems for the government.
“In theory, our government praises climate action. In practice, it continues to postpone the measures needed to reduce emissions, thus increasing the impact on the future,” said activist Luisa Neubauer, a leader of Fridays For Future in Germany. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Economics and Climate told the Guardian that the government is convinced that the April amendment is not unconstitutional.
One of the models cited by activists is the historic ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which ruled in April that Switzerland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights because it was not doing enough to combat climate change, following an appeal from a group of elderly Swiss ladies united in an association, Elderly for the Climate. On June 12, however, the Swiss parliament rejected the sentence.
