NEUBAUER ET AL. V. GERMANY

A group of German youth successfully challenged the Federal Climate Protection Act, leading the Federal Constitutional Court to rule that the law violated fundamental rights by failing to specify sufficient emission cuts beyond 2030.

• Applicants challenged Germany's Federal Climate Protection Act, arguing that the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 (relative to 1990 levels) was insufficient and violated human rights protected by the German constitution. They contended that a 70% reduction by 2030 was necessary to meet international obligations under the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to "well below 2 degrees Celsius".
• The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that parts of the Federal Climate Protection Act were incompatible with fundamental rights because they did not mandate sufficient emission reductions after 2030. The Court determined that the legislature failed to proportionally distribute the carbon budget between current and future generations and mandated that clear reduction targets for 2031 onwards be established by the end of 2022.
• The case is viewed as groundbreaking within a global trend of youth-led climate litigation based on intergenerational equity, following similar legal actions in Colombia, Portugal, and France.

APA

Natural Justice (2021). NEUBAUER ET AL. V. GERMANY. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Neubauer-et-al.-v.-Germany.pdf

Chicago

Natural Justice. NEUBAUER ET AL. V. GERMANY. 2021. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Neubauer-et-al.-v.-Germany.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Natural Justice |title=NEUBAUER ET AL. V. GERMANY |date=December 2021 |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Neubauer-et-al.-v.-Germany.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{naturaljustice2021neubauer, author = {{Natural Justice}}, title = {{NEUBAUER ET AL. V. GERMANY}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, year = {2021}, month = dec, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Neubauer-et-al.-v.-Germany.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }