Climate-related Laws in Germany – Overview, Structure and Relationship to Environmental Laws

This study report is part of the Sino-German Cooperation on Climate Change – NDC Implementation. Through the climate legislation workstream, this cooperation supports the Chinese side by strengthening the exchange between experts and stakeholders from China and Germany and providing relevant information and experience from Germany and the EU. In order to implement its NDC, the Chinese Government has been focusing on the further development of its climate legislation. Until recently, efforts concentrated on the elaboration of a climate act as legal reference framework. According to new developments, however, China aims at elaborating a comprehensive Environmental Code with a chapter on climate. Although Germany does not have an Environmental code, different drafts of such a code were developed over 3 decades. In the end, however, Germany focussed on the development of climate legislation with independent framework climate acts at the federal and subnational level. This study report presents an overview of the German experience with developing its climate legislation and attempting to codify environmental law and sets out the advantages and disadvantages of certain approaches. To this end, Chapter 2 gives an overview of climate-related laws in Germany. Chapter 3 addresses the relationship of these laws to environmental law, while Chapter 4 assesses the approach of an environmental code with a chapter on climate in view of the German experience. The report closes with a summary.