Baden-Württemberg

Germany

Rheinland-Pfalz

Bayern

Sachsen-Anhalt

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Brandenburg

Schleswig-Holstein

Bremen

Thüringen

Niedersachsen

Berlin

Saarland

Hessen

Nordrhein-Westfalen

Sachsen

Hamburg

The German environmental organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) filed a climate lawsuit against the state of Baden-Württemberg at the Administrative Court in Mannheim on June 10, 2025. According to Baden-Württemberg's own climate projection report, the state will miss its legally mandated 2030 climate target by 6 million tons of CO2, representing 17 percent above the allowed limit of 36 million tons. The state is also projected to fall short of its 2040 climate neutrality goal by over 21 million tons of CO2, with the transport sector showing the largest gap at 50 percent above its 2030 target.
The state's 2023 Climate Protection Act requires the government to adopt an immediate climate protection program when targets are missed. DUH set a deadline of June 8, 2025, for the state government under Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann to present such a program, but this deadline passed without action. The lawsuit seeks to compel the state to implement additional climate measures, including accelerated energy-efficient renovation of schools and kindergartens, truck tolls on state roads, speed limits on highways, and preservation of Stuttgart's main train station configuration and railway connections.
In November 2022, DUH previously obtained judgment requiring Baden-Württemberg to present a climate protection concept, though the state government subsequently amended the climate law in February 2023. DUH now alleges that the state government is violating the revised law as well.

In November 2022, Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe), submitted a complaint to the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg. The environmental organization argues that in accordance with the Federal Climate Protection Act, the German government is required to draw up a climate protection program for the land use, land use change and forestry sector (LULUCF). It submitted that the current measures were insufficient to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality. 

On November 8, 2021, environmental organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH; Environmental Action Germany) brought a claim against the state of Baden-Württemberg (BaWü) asking the Higher Administrative Court of BaWü to order the BaWü government to adopt an integrated energy and climate protection plan to: (i) reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 65% by 2030 (as compared to 1990 levels) and (ii) reach carbon neutrality by 2040. 

The state’s climate protection law (KSG BW), adopted in 2013 and amended in 2021, stipulates that in 2020 and every five years thereafter, the state government shall decide an integrated energy and climate protection concept, which sets out essential objectives, strategies and measures for meeting the overall climate protection goals. This concept is to be decided on the basis of legally mandated monitoring reports and following consultations with civil society associations and federations. Plaintiff complaints that to date, no such integrated energy and climate protection concept exists, even though the KSG BW was amended in 2021. As a result, plaintiff argues, the state is in violation of its own Climate Protection Act. 


Geography

Baden-Württemberg

Recent cases