Climate Council: Germany will probably miss its climate targets
“Germany on track for 2030 climate targets for the first time”, the German government said in March. The Expert Council for Climate Issues now contradicts this.
Exhaust plume over the Bremen-Hastedt power station.
(Image: heise online / anw)
The Expert Council for Climate Issues assumes that total greenhouse gas emissions in Germany will fall by 2030 - albeit probably less sharply than calculated in the Federal Environment Agency's projection data. "The Expert Council considers the projected emissions in the energy, buildings and transport sectors as well as - with restrictions - in industry to be underestimated," said its Chairman Hans-Martin Henning. "Overall, we cannot confirm the cumulative target achievement for the years 2021 to 2030 shown by the 2024 projection data; on the contrary, we assume that the target will not be met."
Based on this projection data, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK) stated in March of this year that Germany was on track to meet its 2030 climate targets for the first time. The 2024 greenhouse gas projections showed a reduction of almost 64% by 2030 compared to 1990, it said, meaning that the German climate target for 2030 was within reach. In contrast, a reduction of 49 percent was expected in the 2021 projection report. "This underlines that the measures taken in the meantime are having an effect," wrote the BMWK.
The Expert Council now counters that current developments were not included in the projection data. These include, in particular, the cuts in the Climate and Transformation Fund, but also changes in market expectations for gas prices and CO₂ certificate prices in the EU ETS. "In addition, methodological limitations also contribute to possible underestimates," writes the Expert Council.
"Federal government should act"
The amended Climate Protection Act, which passed through the Bundestag in April and still has to be signed off by the Federal President, stipulates that the Expert Council should determine whether the total annual emission levels will be met in the years 2021 to 2030 inclusive. The five experts have now complied with this requirement.
The Federal Environment Agency's projection data does not provide any information on the probability of the emissions pathway shown, explains the Expert Council. It has therefore used an assumed benchmark path that is just as likely to be exceeded as undercut by all possible future emission paths. As a result, the Expert Council has come to the conclusion that such a benchmark path is likely to be above the emissions path from the 2024 projection data, "and so clearly that it should not be assumed that the target will be achieved".
The amendment to the Climate Protection Act removed the previous obligation of the responsible federal ministries to submit an immediate action program if statutory CO₂ emissions targets are not met in a sector. "Even the projected shortfalls in the targets under the European burden sharing from 2024 and the target of reducing emissions by at least 65% by 2030, which have been confirmed by the Expert Council, do not oblige the German government to take further action on climate policy," explains the Expert Council. However, the government should not wait for the targets to be missed again, but should examine immediate measures, particularly in the buildings and transport sectors, where the climate targets are being exceeded the most.
(anw)
