A court ruling handed down today has heralded a turning point in the area of climate protection in Germany. The 11th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg has upheld complaints by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) and the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND), which called for an immediate program for the buildings and transport sectors. This ruling obliges the Federal Government to draw up a program in accordance with Section 8 of the Climate Protection Act to ensure compliance with the annual emission levels set out in the Act in these sectors for the years 2024 to 2030.
The need for this measure was highlighted by the Federal Environment Agency, which found that the permissible emission levels in the transport and buildings sectors would be exceeded in 2021 and 2022. According to the Climate Protection Act, the responsible federal ministry is obliged to submit an immediate action program if these limits are exceeded in order to ensure compliance with the emission levels in the following years.
