| Klimaschutz or Climate Change | |
| Court: | German Constitutional Court |
| Citations: | (24 March 2021) 1 BvR 2656/18 |
Neubauer v Germany (24 March 2021) 1 BvR 2656/18 (also the Klimaschutz case) is a landmark German constitutional law case, concerning the duty of the German federal government to take action to prevent climate damage.
Luisa Neubauer and others brought a constitutional complaint against the Federal Climate Change Act, that the Germany government was not acting quickly enough to comply with constitutional rights in the Grundgesetz 1949, including the right to life and the duty to protect the environment.
The German Constitutional Court held that the government had a duty to speed up its climate protection measures, as part of its constitutional duty to protect the rights to life and the environment under, respectively, article2 and article20a of the Grundgesetz 1949. It held that the causal link between manmade emissions and climate change, that all release of CO2 caused more warming, and that any carbon budget was limited. It rejected that because Germany could not stop global warming alone, it did not have responsibility: on the contrary it was necessary that Germany undertook action to encourage others to do so and international cooperation. The Court said the following.[1]