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The German constitutional verdict is a landmark in climate litigation

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 697–699 (2022)Cite this article

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Climate and freedom are interconnected in various ways. The recent German verdict on climate protection realigned the fundamental rights in liberal democratic societies and marks an important step in climate litigation around the world.

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Fig. 1: Weaknesses of the IPCC emissions budget.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by the Leibniz Association within the Leibniz ScienceCampus Phosphorus Research Rostock.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, Leipzig, Germany

    Felix Ekardt & Katharine Heyl

  2. Faculty of Law and Interdisciplinary Faculty, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Felix Ekardt

  3. Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Katharine Heyl

Authors
  1. Felix Ekardt
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  2. Katharine Heyl
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Contributions

F.E. developed the underlying human rights perspective, beginning in 2000, and conceptualized and drafted the article. K.H. provided additional content and edited the article. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Felix Ekardt.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Climate Change thanks Robert Glicksman and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Ekardt, F., Heyl, K. The German constitutional verdict is a landmark in climate litigation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 697–699 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01419-0

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