September, 03 2021, 09:44am EDT
Greenpeace Starts Legal Proceedings Against Volkswagen for Fuelling the Climate Crisis
VW business model violates future freedom and property rights.
Berlin, Germany
Greenpeace Germany announced today that it is suing Volkswagen, the world's second largest car manufacturer, for failing to decarbonise the company in line with the 1.5degC goal agreed in Paris. Based on the most recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), the independent environmental organisation demanded the company end the production of climate-damaging internal combustion vehicles and reduce its carbon footprint by 65% by 2030 at the latest.
By holding Volkswagen accountable for the consequences of its climate-damaging business model, Greenpeace Germany is enforcing the landmark Karlsruhe constitutional court ruling of April 2021, when the judges ruled that future generations have a fundamental right to climate protection. Large companies are equally bound by this requirement.
Martin Kaiser, Executive Director of Greenpeace Germany, said: "While people suffer from floods and droughts triggered by the climate crisis, the car industry, despite its enormous contribution to global warming, seems unaffected. The ruling of the Constitutional Court represents a mandate to quickly and effectively enforce the legal protection of our common livelihoods. We need all hands on deck to protect our common future."
In its letter to Volkswagen preceding the filing with the court, Greenpeace Germany claims that the company's current and planned measures contravene the Paris climate goals, fuel the climate crisis and thus violate applicable law. Disregarding the need to rapidly phase out the internal combustion engine to be able to stay below 1.5degC, Volkswagen continues to sell millions of climate-damaging diesel and petrol cars, causing a carbon footprint almost equivalent to Australia's total annual emissions, contributing to increase extreme weather events, according to a research by Greenpeace Germany.
The plaintiffs, including Fridays for Future activist Clara Mayer, are asserting civil liability claims for the protection of their personal liberties, health and property rights, based on the May 2021 Dutch Court case against Shell, which ruled that large corporations have their own climate responsibility and ordered Shell and all its subsidiaries to do more to protect the climate.
Notes
Greenpeace Germany is represented by Dr. Roda Verheyen. The Hamburg-based attorney was already legal counsel for the nine plaintiffs in the climate lawsuit against the German government, which ended with the successful ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in April 2021 and is also leading the claim against RWE brought by a Peruvian farmer since 2015.
Greenpeace Germany is appearing today, 3 September 2021, together with Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) at the Federal Press Conference in Berlin. In addition, DUH today initiated proceedings against the other two major German carmakers, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, demanding a climate strategy that complies with the Paris Agreement goals. DUH also announced legal action against the oil and natural gas company Wintershall Dea.
The suit is launched only days before the start of the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA), one of the largest Car Shows in the world due to open on 7 September 7 in Munich. Greenpeace Germany as part of a large NGO alliance is organising a large protest march and bike ride against the car and internal combustion engine-centred industry.
Quotes
Roda Verheyen, counsel for the plaintiffs: "Whoever delays climate protection harms others and thus behaves unlawfully. This is clear on the basis of the constitutional court decision, and this also and especially applies to the German car industry with its gigantic global CO2 footprint. Clearly, this is not a game. Civil law can and must help us to prevent the worst effects of climate change by ordering corporations to stop emitting - otherwise they endanger our lives and deprive our children and grandchildren of the right to a safe future."
Clara Mayer, plaintiff against Volkswagen and climate protection activist, said: "Climate protection is a constitutional right. It is not acceptable that a company should so significantly prevent us from reaching our climate targets. At the moment, Volkswagen is making huge profits by producing climate-damaging cars, which we will have to pay dearly for in the form of climate consequences. The basic rights of future generations are in danger, as we are already seeing the effects of the climate crisis. The begging and pleading has come to an end, it is time to hold Volkswagen legally responsible."
Links
The claim letter from Greenpeace in German can be found at https://bit.ly/3mV05Hn.
Further information on the claim at https://www.greenpeace.de/themen/energiewende/mobilitaet/auf-klimaschutz-verklagt
Contacts
Benjamin Stephan, transport expert Greenpeace Germany, mobile +49151-57208151, Benjamin.Stephan@greenpeace.org
Simone Miller, Press Officer Greenpeace Germany, mobile +49171-8706647, Simone.Miller@greenpeace.org
Photo desk Eva Petschull, +49174-1313323, pictures available here
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
+31 20 718 2000LATEST NEWS
Michigan's Democratic AG Under Fire After Armed Agents Raid Homes of Palestine Defenders
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," said one attorney.
Apr 23, 2025
Federal and local law enforcement officers smashed their way into the Michigan homes of pro-Palestine student organizers on Wednesday in what the state attorney general's office said was a vandalism probe—but critics called an attack on dissent against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
Backed by FBI agents, officers broke into homes in Ypsilanti, Canton, and Ann Arbor on Wednesday morning. Video uploaded to social media by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, showed officers battering down the door to a Ypsilanti house before others rushed into the home barking commands with guns drawn and pointed at the residents.
"No search warrant was provided," someone says in the video as the invaders crashed through the homes' locked front door. People in the house said their phones and other electronic devices and possessions, including vehicles, were taken.
🚨BREAKING | Officials Confirms Raids in Multiple Cities; TAHRIR Coalition Says FBI Agents, Michigan State Police, and Local Officers Targeted Pro-Palestine Organizers
[image or embed]
— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) April 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
MLivereported that people inside the home were handcuffed and moved to the porch outside before being released about 15 minutes later.
The pro-Palestine advocacy group TAHRIR Coalition rallied supporters to two of the homes. Video posted on YouTube shows members of a crowd that gathered outside the Ypsilanti house taunting the agents as they came in and out of the home.
According toDrop Site News, Ann Arbor police said that the investigation involves "reported crimes" committed in the city and other jurisdictions.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed bureau agents took part in the raids, which he described vaguely as "law enforcement activities."
Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, told the Detroit Free Press that the raids "were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan," but were "in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."
"There is no immigration enforcement angle to the execution of these search warrants," Wimmer added.
However, Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, noted that "everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan."
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," Jacob added.
Jacob said seven people were targeted in Wednesday's raids. No arrests were made. The attorney also noted that the warrants were signed by Judge Michelle Friedman Appel, whose jurisdiction includes Huntington Woods, where vandals painted graffiti and inflicted other damage at the home of University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker while the Jewish man and his family slept inside last December.
Last month, vandals also damaged the Ann Arbor home of Provost Laurie McCauley.
The Graduate Employees' Organization, a union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, said one of its members was detained during Wednesday's raids.
"We strongly condemn the actions taken today and all past and present repression of political activism," the group said. "We urge University of Michigan administrators, the regents of the University of Michigan, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to end their campaign against students and stop putting graduate workers in harm's way."
Dawud Walid, the Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "we call into question the aggressive nature of this morning's raids of activists' homes, which follows the recent misuse of prosecutorial power in Michigan and throughout our country against pro-Palestinian activists."
"In any other context, such minor infractions would be handled by local law enforcement or referred to local, elected prosecutors—not escalated to federal intervention," Walid added. "This disproportionate response further fuels the perception that Muslim and Arab students, and those who stand in solidarity with them, are being treated overly hostile by law enforcement compared to those who commit harm toward American Muslims."
According to CAIR:
This recent escalation comes on the heels of prior arrests and charges brought by the Michigan attorney general's office against University of Michigan student protesters for minor, nonviolent infractions—including misdemeanor trespassing—during peaceful demonstrations advocating for Palestinian human rights, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and for the University of Michigan to divest from companies complicit in the occupation and violence.
After Nessel announced criminal charges—some of them felonies—for 11 University of Michigan Palestine defenders last September, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, said the attorney general was "going to set a precedent, and it's unfortunate that a Democrat made that move."
"We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We've done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs," Tlaib said. "But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs."
At the federal level, the Trump administration has been arresting and initiating deportation proceedings against international students who have taken part in pro-Palestine campus protests. Although the government admits the targeted individuals have committed no crimes, immigration law allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Abrego Garcia Family Flees to Safe House After Trump DHS Posts Home Address on Social Media
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children. This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Apr 23, 2025
The Trump administration has not only sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran megaprison due to an "administrative error" and so far refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return to the United States, but also shared on social media the home address of his family in Maryland, forcing them to relocate.
The news that Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and her children were "moved to a safe house by supporters" after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X a 2021 order of protection petition that Vasquez Sura filed but soon abandoned was reported early Tuesday by The Washington Post.
"I don't feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," said Vasquez Sura. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I'm scared for my kids."
A DHS spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for a comment about not redacting the family's address, according to the newspaper's lengthy story about Vasquez Sura—who shares a 5-year-old nonverbal, autistic son with Abrego Garcia and has a 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was abusive.
On Wednesday, The New Republicpublished a short article highlighting the safe house detail and noting that "the government has not commented on the decision to leave the family's address in the document it posted online," sparking a fresh wave of outrage over the Trump administration endangering the family.
He was "mistakenly" deported to prison camp, and it was just a "slip-up" that they then posted his wife's address. Bullshit. If these are all accidents, who's getting fired?
[image or embed]
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 12:29 PM
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children," MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye wrote on X Wednesday. "This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Several others responded on the social media platform Bluesky.
"These fascists didn't stop at abducting Abrego Garcia, they've now doxxed his wife, forcing her into hiding," said Dean Preston, the leader of a renters' rights organization. "The Trump administration is terrorizing this family. Speak up, show up, resist."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for the group Progressive Mass, similarly declared, "The Trump administration is terrorizing this woman."
Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst for the Project On Government Oversight's Constitution Project, openly wondered "if publishing Abrego Garcia and his wife's home address violates federal or (particularly) Maryland laws."
"Definitely unconscionable and further demonstration of bad faith/intimidation," Hawkins added.
While Abrego Garcia's family seeks refuge in a U.S. safe house, he remains behind bars in his native El Salvador—despite the Supreme Court order from earlier this month and an immigration judge's 2019 decision that was supposed to prevent his deportation. Multiple congressional Democrats have flown to the country in recent days to support demands for his freedom.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Lawyers Coalition Says Elite Firms Have Only One Choice: Capitulate to Trump—Or Fight Back
"These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession," says an open letter from legal groups.
Apr 23, 2025
In an open letter published Wednesday, amid the Trump administration's unprecedented scrutiny on Big Law, multiple legal groups are calling on elite American law firms to convene and coordinate a unified response to U.S. President Donald Trump's "unconstitutional actions" and "threats to the rule of law and system of justice."
The legal groups include the coalition Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), the coalition Lawyers Allied Under Rule of Law, and the Steady State—which, according to the executive director of LDAD, "formed in the first Trump term as a loose association that maintained a low internet profile because many members were in government," but has "become much more organized and active" in response to the president's Department of Government Efficiency.
The groups drew a distinction between the several elite law firms who in recent weeks have negotiated deals with the Trump administration either in response to punishments imposed via executive order or to avoid the prospect of an executive order, and law firms who have resisted the Trump administration's pressure.
The law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey have all filed suits challenging Trump's executive orders targeting them. All four have won initial relief in court.
According to the letter, more than 800 other firms, including 17 firms on the Am Law 200—a ranking of top law firms based on gross revenue—have joined amicus briefs in defense of the firms that have sued.
"Lawyers Defending American Democracy calls on the 170 undeclared Am Law 200 firms to avoid the path of those now notorious nine," the letter states.
"If you are one of these firms, you understand that the threatened executive edicts are not legal or enforceable. Rather, they are a tactic designed to enlist you in undermining the rule of law. Any concession by your prestigious firms only helps the administration intimidate the legal profession from challenging its actions," according to the legal groups.
The letter states that negotiating with the administration is futile in part because "there exists no reasonable terms for resolving this dispute."
The letter also points to the fact that all four courts that have heard the cases from firms challenging Trump "have held that the likelihood of these law firms succeeding on the merits is so great that they have taken the extraordinary step of issuing temporary restraining orders against the government’s enforcement." This is evidence, according to the letter, that negotiation is unnecessary.
"If you band together and agree to support one another, the White House strategy will collapse," the letter states. "These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession."
"We must fight because if lawyers don't stand up for the rule of law, who will? If we don't fight for the principles that we have devoted our professional lives to—and that make us a free society—those principles will be forever compromised," the letter concludes.
According to a statement from LDAD, the legal groups behind the letter collectively represent over 1,000 lawyers who who have worked as senior partners, judges, state attorneys general, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, as general counsel for major companies, and state bar presidents.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular