German farmer sues Volkswagen over CO2 emissions

A German court began hearing a case against the Volkswagen group on Friday, brought by a farmer who argues the automaker’s emissions violate his rights.

Volkswagen’s emissions are considerably contributing to climate change, according to an organic farmer from the Rhineland town of Detmold, who is backed by the Greenpeace campaign group.

He believes that this infringes on his basic rights to property, health, and liberty.

“A corporation with such gigantic CO2 emissions as VW is partly responsible for the damage caused by the climate crisis,” Roda Verheyen, the farmer’s lawyer, was cited as saying by Greenpeace ahead of the proceedings.

If the group does not reduce its emissions much faster than currently planned, it will be harming others and therefore behaving “unlawfully”, she said.

However, a spokesman for the court in Detmold on Friday said it had expressed clear doubts about the success of the lawsuit.

The case was adjourned until September to allow time for the farmer to submit additional written evidence and to allow Volkswagen time to comment.

The automotive group has previously rejected the farmer’s allegations as “unfounded”.

He is trying to claim “individual liability for general consequences of climate change” and that “in our view cannot succeed”, the carmaker said.

The farmer and Greenpeace want to force VW to reduce the proportion of cars it makes with combustion engines to 25 percent by 2029, and to end production of combustion engine vehicles completely by 2030.

They also want VW to reduce its CO2 emissions by 65 percent compared to 2018.

The plaintiffs accuse VW of having known about the dangers of global warming for decades.

According to their findings, the board was informed about the repercussions of rising carbon dioxide emissions and the threat of climate change at a meeting in 1983.

The Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi, Porsche, and Skoda among its 12 brands, is investing 35 billion euros on the transition to electric vehicles, with the goal of becoming the world’s largest electric carmaker by 2025.