Ok, so let me try to summarise today's verdict by the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest civil law court @BGH_Bund :
Globally active 🇩🇪 automakers cannot be held legally accountable for causing excessive CO2 emissions #Climate because:
* Germany's obligations under Paris do not imply liability by automakers for their contribution to prospective exceedance of targets
Cont'd
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https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2026/2026054.html
* the persons bringing the case aren't impacted in their personal rights by the economic activities of polluting companies because there are no legally binding limits to their contribution to a CO2 budget
* a limit to cumulative emissions is confirmed but cannot legally be broken down to limit major polluting companies
* future drastic reductions of freedom due to climate heating are not relevant because legally permissable emissions cannot be held against a manufacturer
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We've always said it: the diffusion of responsibility to other levels is a deep flaw of the architecture of climate politics, allowing everybody to claim how committed they are without actually having to be committed. "We can't act unless all the world's countries act" is being replayed one level down.
Companies aren't responsible, only the government as a whole. Cities aren't, provinces aren't - only the whole country, somehow. So me? No, we can't be obliged. (And nobody else either.)
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Meanwhile, in the real world:
State of Climate 2025 Report:
https://library.wmo.int/viewer/69807/download?file=WMO-1391-2025_en.pdf
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Wolfgang Lucht
Pauline von Hellermann