A German court rejected a lawsuit by the environmental group "Greenpeace" to force the car manufacturer Volkswagen to stop selling vehicles with internal combustion engines in 2030.
The civil suit is among a series of similar ones filed by climate change activists, including one against luxury carmaker BMW, which was dismissed last Sunday, N1 reports.
The regional court in Braunschweig ruled that VW acted in accordance with the law, the German news agency DPA reported.
The car manufacturer welcomed the verdict, and Greenpeace announced an appeal.
"Companies like Volkswagen, which are damaging the climate, have a responsibility to reduce CO2 emissions much faster and end their fossil fuel-based business models," the group said in a statement, which believes that "this is the only way to slow down the climate crisis."
Scientists say that emissions of harmful gases that warm the atmosphere, such as from burning fossil fuels, must be sharply reduced in the coming years to limit global warming to a tolerable 1,5 degrees Celsius this century.
Deputies of the European Union today approved the agreement reached in October to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars and vans until 2035, but that decision has yet to be approved by the Council.
Conservative politicians in Germany, which has a powerful car lobby – VW, Mercedes and BMW, want to exempt from the sales ban vehicles that would still have internal combustion engines, but would use synthetic fuels produced from renewable energy sources.
Bonus video:
