German govt in the dock over farmers’ climate case

A Berlin court yesterday began hearing a case brought by three farmers against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government over its failure to meet climate protection targets, the first such legal challenge in Germany.

Citing cattle stressed by heatwaves and huge crop losses due to extreme weather swings, from lasting droughts to torrential rains, a fruit-grower and two livestock farmers backed by environmental group Greenpeace are seeking to force the government into action.

“We are suing to get the government to keep to its targets and implement its measures,” co-plaintiff Franziska Blohm, whose family manages an organic fruit farm near Hamburg, told AFP ahead of the hearing. The aim of the exercise is not to obtain “damages or anything similar,” she stressed.

“We feel that our livelihoods are threatened. We are afraid that if we don’t do something, the fruit farm won’t survive. The government must now show the way,” she said.

But Merkel’s government last year admitted it would fall short of its climate target of slashing greenhouse gas emissions in Germany by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

Rather, it expected to achieve only 32 percent in reductions compared to 1990.

With climate shooting up the political agenda after two blistering summers and a wave of Fridays for Future student strikes, Berlin has since rolled out a new environmental protection package, with Merkel pledging that Germany should be climate neutral by 2050.