Well the headline is kind of dumb, but the story is still quite interesting. How could a high state official of environmental affairs not have heard of the IPCC before? Apparently, they handled this case quite naively and seemed to think that this would be easy to win. Well, I guess not. Climate activists are getting more and more support from the courts as the evidence of endangering future generations by not acting is now practically impossible to deny
They didn't think it would be easy to win, or maybe they did but their strategy was to have the case thrown out before trial, which failed. They hadn't prepared for the trial. No sneaking involved.