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German city residents sue government over air pollution

Seven residents in Germany are taking the government to court over the poor air quality around their homes, an organisation representing them said on Monday.

Published: 26 September 2022 17:03 CEST

Cars, trucks and delivery vehicles drive into Berlin.

Cars, trucks and delivery vehicles drive into Berlin. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

The residents of Berlin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich believe current government legislation is “demonstrably inadequate to protect people’s health”, according to the organisation, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH).

Levels of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in Germany are up to five times higher than the safe levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to DUH.

The complainants are calling for immediate action to bring about “a reduction in dangerous air pollutants from, among other things, traffic, wood burning and agriculture”, said Juergen Resch, national director of DUH.

“Politicians are doing too little to protect people like me who live on a busy road,” said complainant Volker Becker-Battaglia, from Munich.

This time last year, a new coalition government was elected in Germany on a promise to make environmental concerns one of its top priorities.

READ ALSO: Germany should ditch Christmas lights this year, says environmental group

The Greens entered power for the first time in more than two decades, promising that Germany would end coal power and generate 80 percent of electricity from renewables by 2030.

But since then, climate concerns have been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, an acute energy crisis and record inflation.

Germany has accelerated plans to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) by sea and has even decided to reactivate mothballed coal-fired power plants.

In 2021, climate activists won a landmark victory in Germany when the constitutional court ruled that the government’s climate plans were insufficient and placed an unfair burden on future generations.

German environmental groups also last year announced a legal offensive against car giants Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW over their emissions.

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Climate protesters under fire in France, Germany, France and UK: UN expert

Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, told AFP in an interview this week that he was deeply troubled by the hardening tone against climate activists in countries including France, Austria, Germany and Britain.

Government ministers have been throwing about terms like “eco terrorists” and “Green Talibans” to describe non-violent activists, he claimed, also blaming some media reporting for contributing to an increasingly hostile
public attitude.

“It creates a sort of chilling effect,” warned Forst, an independent expert appointed under the UN’s Aarhus Convention — a legally-binding text that provides for justice in environmental matters.

“Currently, the right to protest is at risk in Europe.”

Forst said he had recently visited several European countries after receiving complaints that activists faced treatment that allegedly violated the convention and international human rights law.

Following a visit to Britain, he publicly voiced alarm at the “toxic discourse” and “increasingly severe crackdown” on environmental defenders.

‘Regressive laws’

Forst charged that “regressive laws” in Britain were being used to slap climate activists with harsh penalties, with one activist sent to prison for six months for a 30-minute slow march disrupting traffic.

Another activist had been sentenced to 27 months behind bars in the UK, he said.

He also decried harsh sentences in other countries, including Germany.

Forst travelled to France last month following complaints about a crackdown on a drawn-out anti-motorway protest near the southwestern city of Toulouse.

Activists, called “squirrels”, who have been squatting in trees destined to be chopped down to make way for the A69 motorway, have accused law enforcement of denying them access to food and water and using floodlights to deprive them of sleep.

Forst said he had been blocked from bringing food to the activists, and was “shocked” by what he found.

“Obviously, deprivation of food, of drinking water, of sleep is clearly against international law,” said Forst, a French national.

They are “considered acts of torture in international texts”, he added.

Dangerous

Forst said that European media coverage often focuses exclusively on the drama around demonstrations and not on the climate crisis prompting the protests.

The world is in a very “dangerous time”, he said, but the general public often do not understand why young people are “blocking access to airports, or gluing their hands on the floor”.

As a result, states have felt justified in developing new policies and laws, paving the way for police crackdowns, and increasingly harsh sentences.

In Britain, he said that some judges were even barring environmental defenders from using the word “climate” to explain their motivation to the jury.

Forst said that he was investigating whether big companies, especially in the oil and energy sector, might be lobbying to increase the pressure on climate activists.

“The most dangerous” companies were even “using security forces, connections with the mafia… to target and sometimes to kill defenders,” he said.

Forst said he was currently organising consultations in Latin America and Africa with environmental activists there who are facing attacks by companies.

He is also investigating whether companies based in Europe are, through local subsidiaries, contributing to attacks on activists.

And the expert blasted European countries for “a double standard” by supporting environmental defenders in other parts of the world but “not protecting their defenders inside Europe”.

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