The acute climate crisis is a global threat to people’s rights to clean water, their dignity and their rights to security, freedom and life. It has thus become a matter of the protection of human rights.
Confronted with the immense ecological challenges, decision-makers must take a stand for a green future for us and our children. The Stiftung Zukunft jetzt! wants to help drive this change and together with our partners address the most pressing environmental issues in jurisdictions globally.
Effective climate protection has been promised under international law by practically all countries of the world, the latest being the Paris Climate Agreement (2015).
However, there is a problem: international treaties usually do not contain sanction mechanisms. Unfortunately, there are all too often implementation deficits in environmental law, i.e. a discrepancy between the ambitious goals and promises on the part of politicians and the ‘meagre’ practical results.
The Stiftung Zukunft jetzt! wants to help narrowing the gap between the identified need for change and the real actions of politics, business and the consumers.
To achieve this change, instruments are necessary that review the actions of governments and bind them to the standards and goals anchored in law – in the area of climate protection for example by means of climate litigation. The aim is to use professional legal means to help enforce applicable regulations, which are not least also of public interest.
In recent years, climate litigation against governments and companies has strongly been on the rise worldwide. Whether they are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting ecosystems or preserving biodiversity, the matter is also always the protection of human rights.
We promote this type of litigation because we want to ensure that the momentum continues and thus the climate movement also gains more traction. This sometimes requires more stamina and staying power across all stages of the legal process in order for a ‘green’ transformation to succeed.
Climate justice needs support! The voices of those whose livelihoods are massively affected by climate change have to be heard in court. The aim is to make them representatives of a much larger number of people.
Not just companies, but also governments have to be made to act. It becomes clear that climate politics cannot take place in a vacuum, but is part of a legal framework.
Ethics and Equity are at the core of debate of climate change. Debate has to move from Climate Change to Climate Justice.
Animal rights litigation is also our concern: animals also have rights anchored in law. However, as they cannot enforce their rights themselves, they depend on humans to do it for them.
The introduction of the law about representative action for animal protection associations created, at least, a balance between animal protection organisations and animal users. This law about representative action as already introduced in several German Federate States removes the prerequisite that each individual can only assert their own rights through litigation. Whilst representative action has already been part of environmental legislation for a long time, only some German Federate States have so far introduced it for animal protection organisations.
This legal disadvantage for animal protection due to the lack of unified nationwide legislation is unacceptable – especially considering that the protection of the environment and animals have the same constitutional status.
