Germany is set to miss its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target, experts warned Monday, urging Berlin to swiftly overhaul a recently unveiled climate action plan.<\/p>\n
The report by the council of experts on climate change, an independent body appointed by the government, adds to worries of climate policy backsliding under conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz.<\/p>\n
Europe’s biggest economy has set a legally binding 2030 target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent compared with 1990 levels, and a 2045 deadline to achieve climate neutrality.<\/p>\n
The pace of reductions has slowed — emissions were virtually unchanged last year — but the environment ministry has insisted it is still possible to meet the 2030 goal.<\/p>\n
However, the experts said the ministry’s projections “underestimate the emissions expected up to 2030,” and that it “assumes that the target will be missed”.<\/p>\n
Especially in the buildings and energy sector, emissions were likely to be higher than projected, council head Barbara Schlomann said.<\/p>\n
Berlin’s new climate action plan — announced in March, and including measures such as electric car subsidies and a boost for wind power — also does not go far enough and should be revised, she said.<\/p>\n
“In our assessment, the actual mitigation effect of the programme is likely to be significantly lower than assumed by the government,” said Schlomann.<\/p>\n
Environmental Action Germany (DUH) — which successfully sued the previous government over a climate plan that courts determined was inadequate — has already vowed to challenge the plan in court.<\/p>\n
The group said Monday’s report had given them extra impetus to push on with the challenge, saying the climate programme must be improved “as quickly as possible”.<\/p>\n
The government’s plans have “nothing to do with reality,” charged DUH federal managing director Juergen Resch.<\/p>\n
Merz’s government, arguing that onerous regulations are burdening Germany’s struggling economy, has looked to scale back climate policies in some areas.<\/p>\n
He has backed a loosening of EU-wide car emission rules while his energy minister has pushed plans to build new gas-fired power stations.<\/p>\n
sr\/fz\/yad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany is set to miss its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target, experts warned Monday, urging Berlin to swiftly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18,6308,1359,3557,20411,3558,1358,393,5,3564],"class_list":["post-16422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-berlin","tag-climate-action","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-neutrality","tag-climate-policies","tag-climate-policy","tag-climate-protection","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}