According to Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy and environment minister, Germany will likely fall short of its climate targets in the next two years. He spoke to Die Zeit newspaper on Wednesday, 29 December.
“We will probably miss our 2022 targets. It will be even more difficult for 2023. He said that we are starting with a huge backlog.
He said that 2022 would be the most exhausting year that the ministry has ever experienced in a long while.
The country’s 2019 first national climate law, which was also amended in 2021, sets annual reduction targets for each sector, including transport, up to 2030.
These guidelines are in line with the European reduction plan. The EU climate legislation will be updated in the next two-years, but Germany will still need to reduce its emissions more than other EU countries under current effort-sharing rules.
The EU’s largest economy must reduce its industry emissions by 38 percent in 2022 to 177mt CO2 (down 38 percent from 1990).
Transport should be slashed by 15% compared to 1990.
That’s an additional 6m tonnes in this sector alone, which was unable to reduce its emissions in Germany until recent years and has grown over time in the EU, despite climate policy.
Habeck stated that wind turbines will continue to be built at a rapid pace. From 450 annually in the past years, to 1,500 annually.
The climate law requires that the government aim to meet 80 percent of the country’s power needs with renewable energy. To build this many windmills, 2 per cent of the country’s surface must be reserved.
Finding the right spot for offshore wind farms can be slow and difficult. But the government is working to make laws that speed up the approval process.
After a top court deemed it insufficient, the German parliament passed a bill to amend the federal Climate Action Law.
The law stipulates that if a target has been missed, the difference must be spread evenly over the remaining years.
2030 is the initial benchmark. New targets have been set for 2040, 2045 and 2045. The law states that targets can be increased, but not decreased.
Social democrat Olaf Scholz is leading the new coalition government. It includes the German Greens as well as the liberal FDP.
Details are still being worked out, but reforms are required in nearly all economic sectors, including the utility sector, manufacturing and industry, as well as agriculture and transportation.
