The German climate ministry plans to review Thursday's court ruling that the government's climate policies are inadequate and will also assess whether to appeal the decision, a spokeswoman for the Climate Protection Ministry said on Friday.
The Berlin/Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court ruled in favour of two lawsuits filed by Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe, DUH) and ordered the federal government to tighten its measures to combat climate change.
The measures planned so far by the coalition government are insufficient to achieve Germany's climate targets by 2030, the court said.
The federal government would have to "take a close look at this judgement and its reasoning" before deciding on how to proceed, the spokeswoman said in Berlin.
The German government has one month after receiving the full judgement to appeal, then it would be up to the Federal Administrative Court, the Berlin/Brandenburg court said.
According to the information provided, it may take some time before the full judgement, including written reasons, is available.
The climate ministry spokeswoman made it clear that Germany wants to "emit significantly fewer greenhouse gases" by 2030 compared to 1990. The specific target is a reduction of 65%. To this end, the federal government "presented a comprehensive climate programme" in October 2023. Under that plan the existing gap in climate targets could be reduced by up to 80%.
During the oral argument, the presiding judge Ariane Holle criticized the fact that despite the measures that the German government has presented so far, there is a total gap of around 200 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2030. This is the amount of greenhouse gases that Germany would have to cut by then in order to achieve its climate targets.
The German government has not presented a sufficiently concrete and realistic plan on how to achieve this, the ruling stated.
The spokeswoman for the ministry explained that the German government is aware of this difficult task. "We have always made it clear that the package of measures in the climate protection programme alone cannot be enough," she said.
Thursday's court judgement confirms this need for readjustment. It is also entirely possible to close the gaping hole, she continued. To do so, the federal government would only have to stay on course and implement its programmes with determination.
In its ruling, the court very explicitly does not come to this conclusion, but emphasizes that "the 2023 climate protection programme suffers from methodological flaws and is partly based on unrealistic assumptions," the corresponding press release said on the ruling.