German Government Faces Lawsuit Over Its Failure Meet Climate Goals

Three families in Germany are suing their government hoping to compel it to cut carbon emissions as it has promised, joining a growing trend of citizens worldwide taking legal action against national governments over insufficient climate policies.

Germany's government, and Chancellor Angela
Merkel (center) face a lawsuit by three farming
families over the country's climate policy. 

Greenpeace Germany filed the lawsuit last week on the families’ behalf. The complaint alleges that the government’s failure to meet its 2020 climate target violates the families’ rights to life and health. In 2007, the German government pledged to cut its emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, but now says it will not meet that target.

The three families—the Backsens, the Blohms, and the Lütke Schwienhorsts—are organic farmers whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change.

The German government now says the country’s emissions will fall only 32 percent by 2020 and said instead of working toward meeting that goal it will instead focus on meeting its 2030 goal of a 55 percent reduction.   

Read the story by Dona Drugmand from Climate Liability News - “German Government Faces Lawsuit Over Its Failure Meet Climate Goals.”