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Merkel’s Conservatives Suffer Climate Setback After Court Rebuke

  • Germany’s top court demands changes to climate law by end 2022
  • Court says emissions impact almost ‘every type of freedom’
A wind turbine operates near emissions rising from the Jaenschwalde lignite fired power plant, in Barenbrueck, Germany.

A wind turbine operates near emissions rising from the Jaenschwalde lignite fired power plant, in Barenbrueck, Germany.

Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Germany’s top court ruled that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s climate-protection efforts are falling short, a stinging setback for her conservative bloc just months before national elections.

The constitutional court in Karlsruhe on Thursday said the government was putting future generations at risk by delaying the bulk of planned cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions to after 2030. It now has until the end of next year to specify how it plans to limit global warming in subsequent years.