The federal government must implement effective immediate programs to reduce climate-damaging emissions from buildings and transport – this is the ruling of the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court. Deutsche Umwelthilfe and BUND had sued the federal government. They had accused the traffic light of lax climate protection and had previously called for the implementation of the corresponding immediate programs.
The Higher Administrative Court heard proceedings last week. The question of whether the environmental organizations are even entitled to sue was also examined. The content is about a requirement in Section 8 of the current Climate Protection Act: If the permissible amount of greenhouse gases for a sector is exceeded in a year, the responsible ministry must counteract this with an immediate program.
This was the case in the transport and buildings sectors in 2022. From the perspective of environmental associations, however, the countermeasures are not enough. The Climate Protection Act requires greenhouse gases to be reduced by 65 percent by 2030 compared to 1990. A good 40 percent reduction was achieved last year.
Germany should become greenhouse gas neutral by 2045. The traffic light coalition wants to change the law. Accordingly, the sectoral goals should no longer be decisive, but rather the overall reduction. That hasn’t been decided yet.