Germany will not meet its climate targets unless more is done to tackle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector, government-mandated climate experts warned today, with planned measures deemed insufficient even under the government's climate action programme.
"More efforts" will be needed if Germany is to meet its 2030 target to reduce its GHGs by 65pc compared with 1990 levels, the country's council of experts on climate change ERK said today in a position paper on the climate action programme proposed by the government in June.
The transport sector — and to a lesser degree the buildings and industry sector — remain the key weak points of Germany's climate ambitions, ERK chair Hans-Martin Henning and deputy chair Brigitte Knopf said at the paper's presentation in Berlin.
The German government in June sent an amended draft of the climate action programme to parliament, containing a raft of 130 measures designed to narrow the emissions reduction gap to 200mn t of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) by 2030, compared with the 1,100mn t of CO2e gap that the government says it inherited from its predecessor under former chancellor Angela Merkel.
The draft sparked an uproar in June as it replaced sector targets — for which individual ministries are responsible — with an overall reduction target. But this shift in responsibility could form a good basis for achieving cross-party agreements and involving both citizens and industry in a dialogue on the measures, ERK said.
ERK drew on several reports for its paper, including a projection report by German environment office UBA that also was presented today.
UBA calculated that if all planned measures were carried out, Germany would cut its GHG emissions by 63pc in 2030, but the cumulated excess GHG emissions from the preceding years would total 331mn t of CO2e. If additional scenarios were implemented, such as a full coal phase-out by 2030, Germany would meet its 65pc reduction target and the gap would narrow to 194mn t of CO2e.
Germany will be unable to reach net GHG neutrality by 2045 as planned, UBA concluded, with GHG emissions instead likely to be 82-86pc lower than in 1990.
But with parliamentary work on Germany's draft heating law postponed until after the summer recess, and the draft's initial renewable targets watered down, Henning and Knopf today said UBA's forecasts are too optimistic.
UBA expects the transport sector to miss its targets by 210mn t of CO2e by 2030, the buildings sector by 96mn t of CO2e and industry by 83mn t of CO2e.
With additional measures, the transport sector would barely close its gap to 187mn t of CO2e. The buildings sector would manage a strong reduction to a gap of 34mn t of CO2e and industry would moderately reduce its gap to 51mn t of CO2e.
As a result, Germany also will miss its targets under the EU's Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), UBA said, forecasting a gap of 152mn-299mn t of CO2e in 2021-30.
The council experts urged the government to focus more on Germany's "European obligations" by considering the ESR separately. Knopf suggested that Germany's domestic carbon scheme pull forward, from 2027, the switch to determining its price through tenders under an emissions cap, from its current set prices.
Commenting on the ERK's report, Germany's federal ministry of economic affairs and climate action said it is now about "ambitiously" implementing legislation pertaining to the buildings sector and quickly putting in place carbon contracts for difference to ensure industry makes the necessary investments.
