Germany won’t even come close to achieving its 2020 carbon dioxide emissions reductions goals, according to a new study from the think tank Agora Energiewende.
While it’s been known for a while now that Germany will end up missing its 2020 climate goals — as Chancellor Angela Merkel has openly admitted as much already — the margin of the miss is going to be much greater than was previously thought, if the new study is to be believed.
To be more specific, Germany’s goal had been to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 40% (as compared to 1990 levels) by 2020, but the new study predicts that the most that will be managed is a 30% reduction.
A miss of some 10 percentage points is not an insignificant amount. I suppose that we’ll have to wait to see what happens before we know for sure the validity of the study’s findings … but the work does seem to be pretty solid from the looks of it.
What is “odd” is that despite this becoming clear, Germany has stuck by its decision to scale back renewable energy incentives and was very slow to initiate EV subsidies.
“Only 30 percent instead of 40 percent less CO2 is not a little bit off, but a huge miss of the climate goal for 2020,” the head of Agora, Patrick Graichen, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The Reuters coverage continues: “But the Agora Energiewende think tank said on Thursday its new forecasts suggest Germany was only likely to manage a 30 percent cut due to strong economic growth and immigration.
“Once dubbed the ‘climate chancellor’ for pushing other wealthy nations to address climate change, Merkel has come under fire for not moving Germany fast enough to cut its reliance on fossil fuels as it phases out nuclear power. Agora supports Germany’s ambitious but costly move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources and has often weighed in on Berlin ministries’ policies.
“Merkel said in March that Germany’s next government must set longer-term targets for cutting CO2 emissions soon after this month’s national election to provide clarity for local governments and companies to plan.”
If the goals are set but then never achieved, what does that amount to though? And that’s presuming that official figures are accurate — even though there is good and growing evidence that they are not.
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