Germany sees its CO2 reduction goal in 2030 achievable for the first time

The German Government assured this Friday that Germany is for the first time on track to achieve its climate goals in 2030 if it stays the course, predicting in new projections that greenhouse gas emissions will have decreased by almost 64% in six years. compared to 1990.

“This makes Germany’s 2030 climate goal – a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 65% – tangible.”said the Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection led by Robert Habeck in its 2024 report on greenhouse gas forecasts.

The coalition government, made up of Greens, Liberals and Social Democrats, is confident that it will manage to close the gap that still existed at the beginning of the legislative period completely in 2030.

In its report three years ago, only a 49% reduction was foreseen, which, according to the Executive, shows that the measures taken by the coalition Government, “are starting to have an impact”.

The Government started from a “huge gap” of 1,100 million tons of CO2 between the objective and the measures that were then in place to reduce gases, Habeck said in a press conference.

He explained that the pace of climate protection had to be practically tripled to reach the goal in 2030.

His ministry’s projections now maintain that, with the measures taken, the greenhouse gas emissions allowed in all sectors (total annual emissions) can be met as a whole between 2021 and 2030.

This would result in a “spare” of 47 million tons of CO2 equivalents.

In favor of these optimistic forecasts, the president of the Federal Environment Agency, Dirk Messner, explained at the press conference that on the one hand the use of gas instead of carbon is becoming more frequent again after the first impact of the Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s gas blackmail.

And on the other hand, in 2027 the extension of the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS2) to transport and buildings will arrive, which will also have its effect.

He indicated that the EU expects Germany to reduce its emissions related to ETS2 by half, although he admitted that it is possible that the country will fall short of this objective, although it will achieve the German goals for 2030.

The transport sector has a cumulative reduction gap of 180 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents by 2030, and the construction sector will also miss its target by 32 million tonnes, according to the report.

The Executive maintains that measures such as federal financing for efficient buildings, the energy law for buildings and the increase in truck tolls contribute to reducing the gaps.

“We are not doing equally well in all sectors, so we have to work even harder in some areas,” Habeck admitted.

The energy sector exceeded its accumulated emissions target by 175 million tons of CO equivalents, and the industrial sector by 37 million tons.

The Government recently presented a 4 billion euro program for energy-intensive companies to reduce their C02 emissions through a transformation of their production.