New StudyClimate Action: Is Germany backtracking?

5 November 2025, by Stephanie Janssen

Photo: UHH/CLICCS/A. Linke

Germany is increasingly at risk of failing to meet its own climate targets. A study just released by the University of Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS) assesses seven key social processes that have to stay the course to achieve effective climate protection in Germany. The conclusion: in many areas, politics, the business sector, and society are pulling back. The study provides an ongoing assessment of the climate transition. In this context, the authors also create the first comprehensive database for climate lawsuits in Germany.

Currently, it is hardly realistic that Germany will become climate-neutral by 2045 – the target set by the federal government. Delayed action on the part of politicians and the business sector, emission-intensive consumption trends, growing support for right-wing parties with an anti-ecological agenda, and declining public support are jeopardizing the urgently needed transformation, as the study just released shows.

“This is due in part to self-amplifying spirals of obstruction and escalation,” says the study’s lead author and Mercator Professor Stefan Aykut from the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS. “When climate protection is delayed, because necessary measures are postponed, reducing CO₂ often becomes more costly in the future. This can in turn erode public support and spark new conflicts, especially when people get the impression that costs are not distributed fairly. As a result, climate policy measures are delayed further – which then leads to ever higher costs.”

Climate policy needs broad public support

One example: the debate surrounding the Building Energy Act (Gebäudeenergiegesetz). Buildings are responsible for significant emissions, which have, however, been reduced too slowly so far in Germany and Europe. From 2027 onward, CO₂ emissions from buildings will therefore be made more expensive across Europe. The goal of the previous government (“traffic light coalition”) was to prepare Germany for this change by introducing new legislation designed to avoid the shock of suddenly rising heating costs. Yet confrontational debates in 2023 – with the tabloid Bild warning of “Habeck’s heating hammer” – had just the opposite effect: sales of emission-intensive oil and gas heating exploded, while those of climate-friendly heat pumps plummeted.

“Now, dissent over an – actually sensible – measure is all but certain when heating is bound to become more expensive from 2027,” says Aykut. “Financial compensation for lower-income households, like a climate subsidy, and the long-term, reliable implementation of measures should therefore be prioritized – successful climate policies need solid public support.”

Local initiatives and legal action increase resilience to anti-ecological backlash

The team of researchers examined, based on comprehensive research, interviews, and media analyses, whether the following key processes had gained enough momentum to meet the climate target: national climate policy, global climate governance, municipal climate protection, corporate strategies, consumption patterns, climate protests and climate lawsuits. What they found: five of these processes primarily or partly support climate neutrality, but not sufficiently for Germany to become climate-neutral by 2045. Corporate strategies remain ambivalent, while consumption patterns currently prevent meeting the climate targets.

Local and municipal administrations and civil society initiatives are vital for implementing climate protection. Over the last years, structures have been created and programs financed in these domains that continue to produce longer-terms effects, which makes the local level resilient for a time to anti-ecological sentiments. To help reach the climate target, the study recommends building on these existing structures and resources and lending them financial support. Furthermore, initiatives from civil society that promote climate protection should be legally and politically strengthened.

Together with the study, the team is building the first comprehensive and freely accessible database for climate lawsuits in Germany, which currently contains 175 suits filed against administrative bodies, state governments, and companies. “Climate lawsuits are an effective means of climate protection,” says Prof. Aykut. “When they are successful, it has a lasting symbolic effect and provides backing for similar lawsuits.” In Germany, both the number of climate lawsuits filed and the percentage of positive verdicts have risen in recent years.

Website "Klimawende Ausblick" (in German)