(Reuters) – A German court on Thursday found the government’s policy to mitigate climate change to be unlawful on several points, and ordered Berlin to take emergency action.
The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court said the government’s action on transport and housing fell short under a law setting upper limits for carbon emissions for individual sectors.
Under the ruling, Berlin must present emergency programmes to bring its policy on transport and housing back in line with the current Climate Protection Act from 2024 to 2030.
The Climate Ministry, headed by Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens, has taken note of the ruling and will evaluate the details to see how to proceed, a spokesperson for the ministry told Reuters.
The ministry for transport did not immediately comment on the ruling.
“We will examine how to proceed once we have the reasons for the judgement. Of course, this will also include examining measures that do justice to the court’s judgement,” the ministry for housing and construction said in a statement.
With its ruling, the regional court upheld complaints from the environmental associations BUND and Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) but left open the possibility to appeal.
(Reporting by Markus Wacket, Writing by Linda Pasquini, Editing by Rachel More)
