NGO files environmental lawsuits against five more German state governments

NGO Environmental Action Germany (DUH) is filing lawsuits against five German states on behalf of children and young adults over their failure to pass adequate climate protection laws. Lawyers are working alongside citizens of the states Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saarland, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to try force local governments to pass climate protection laws that are in line with the Paris Agreement or the country’s constitution. “Climate protection isn’t just a federal issue, it is also a state issue,” head lawyer Remo Klinger said in a press release. “All of the states against which we are filing constitutional complaints today are looking even worse in terms of climate protection than at the federal level. These state governments are simply not doing enough. " Citizens taking part in the lawsuits described feeling “afraid” of what climate change will bring in the future and accused their state governments of “failing” them. The NGO launched similar cases against the states of Bavaria, Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia at the start of July.

In a landmark ruling in May, Germany’s constitutional court said the government’s climate laws were insufficient after environmental lawyers and citizens filed a similar case at the federal level.