Significant legal case news I think!
Luisa Neubauer took the German government to court over its climate change law -- and she won.
The cases are most often centered around the idea that future generations have a right to live in a world that is not completely decimated by the climate crisis.
Neubauer and her co-claimants argued that the current German government's failure to have a concrete plan to reduce emissions beyond 2030 would make their lives more difficult because they'd be forced to confront the catastrophic impact of climate change in the future.
The 2019 law called for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 from 1990 levels.
The lawsuit argued that the target wasn't sufficient to meet Germany's obligations under the Paris accord. Under the agreement, most signatories pledged to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius and as close to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that warming of more than 2 degrees would have devastating consequences, including sea level rise, frequent heatwaves, extreme weather and droughts.
"The [German Constitutional] court was not so much talking about the impacts of climate change on young people, but the impact of mitigation measures," said Gerry Liston, the head of climate litigation at Global Legal Action Network, or GLAN.
"If action is delayed, it will require vastly greater emissions reductions in the future and that would impose a massive burden on those alive then," he said.
