Strafbarkeit klimaschädlicher Verhaltensweisen

Given the serious consequences an advancing climate change has on both people and the environment, current measures to limit it are increasingly perceived as inadequate. In many places, cases are brought before courts to compel governments to enact more effective climate legislation and to hold energy and oil companies accountable for their contributions to the changing climate. Jan Cöster-Kauhl examines how the massive emission of greenhouse gases by major emitters should be assessed from the perspective of the criminal law. The first part of the work is devoted to current criminal law statutes. The focus here is on the question of whether a chain of causation can be established between the emission of greenhouse gases and secondary damages caused by climate change. The second part deals with a possible legal reform: the creation of a new provision in the German Criminal Code. Here, the author examines the constitutional implications of such a provision and takes a detailed look at how it will fit into the existing system of environmental criminal law.