Steinmetz, et al. v. Germany III

The constitutional complaint to the German Federal Constitutional Court challenges the reformed German Federal Climate Protection Act. The NGO "Deutsche Umwelthilfe" and 11 other complainants aged 14 to 27 are the plaintiffs. The complainants argue, among other things, that the reform violates the principle of intergenerational freedom (as developed by the FCC in its 2021 Neubauer ruling) and infringes on the right to life and physical integrity. The constitutional complaint is one of three complaints filed by five German environmental organizations together with plaintiffs from all parts of society against the inadequate climate policy of the federal government and, in particular, the new Climate Protection Act (KSG). In addition to Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), Greenpeace, Germanwatch, the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND), and the Solar Energy Promotion Association of Germany (SFV) have each filed a complaint. Already in 2021, DUH, along with some of the plaintiffs, achieved a landmark ruling in which the Federal Constitutional Court granted constitutional status to the right to climate protection. The core of the reform, against which the constitutional complaint is directed, consists in the fact that the federal government's climate protection measures only need to be measured against a cross-sectoral and multi-year total calculation. The government's actions are now based on a projection to comply with the cross-sectoral summed annual emission totals for only three periods: the period 2021-2030, the period 2031-2040, and the period 2041-2045. Only if the projection data show an exceedance of the summed annual emission totals for the decades 2021-2030 or 2031-2040 for two consecutive years does the federal government have to take additional climate protection measures (§ 8 (1) and (4) KSG). However, adjustments for the decade 2031-2040 are not to be made until after 2030.