German Chancellor Angela Merkel has presented herself as a global leader on climate change, but Germany is the sixth-biggest emitter of CO2 worldwide. How will the country address this imbalance?
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In signing and ratifying the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Germany agreed to cut its greenhouse emissions by eight percent by 2012, but has since set itself a more ambitious goal of 21 percent cuts compared to levels in 1990. Most of this reduction has already been achieved due to the collapse of large parts of East Germany’s heavy polluting industries after reunification.
The government even stepped up that commitment and is now aiming at reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Current climate action, however, will fail to achieve this aim, finds a study from the research institute Ecofys. Without new initiatives, emissions could only be reduced by 28 percent.
National Policies
One of the biggest problems is Germany's dependence on coal. The government faces a number of political and economic obstacles in phasing out coal-fired power plants, which supply around half of the country’s electricity, but also represent a major source of Germany’s air pollution and carbon emissions.
The first challenge is meeting current and future energy demands with less coal. Unfortunately, Germany is the world’s leading producer of lignite, also referred to as brown coal - a younger, carbon-rich variety of coal with a relatively low energy level. Germany still has some 24 billion tons of more efficient bituminous, or black coal, but mining it would be too expensive at current world market prices. Brown coal, in turn, is cheap and abundant, but dirty.
Meanwhile the construction of coal plants creates jobs and generates billions of dollars of investment. In short, new coal plants are hard for politicians to resist: they provide a boost to the local economy and job market, and prevent confrontations with Germany’s powerful labor unions.
So-called CO2 sequestration might be a solution. The Swedish Energy Supplier Vattenfall is currently setting up a pilot in Brandenburg for a new sort of power plant that can produce energy without emitting any CO2. It will use extremely high-firing temperatures and a special filtering process to turn carbon dioxide into a non-gaseous form that can be stored underground.
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Environmental organizations like Greenpeace, WWF, and the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) say a transition away from coal is critical to meeting ambitious emissions reduction targets.
German policymakers are also looking at a number of policy options to reduce emissions. The Renewable Energy Sources Act (2000/2004) helped promote alternatives to coal and nuclear power by demanding that power grids purchase energy from renewable sources – such as wind, solar and biomass – at low cost.
Together with the KfW Development Bank, the federal government gave out 1.5 billion euros in loans and grants in 2006 to people who wanted to make their houses more energy efficient and less carbon-intensive. In 2006, around 265,000 German houses were refurbished as a result of this scheme.
Government officials had also been discussing vehicle-based CO2 taxes. Under such a tax system, cars emitting less CO2 are less expensive than others with similar horse power. After long debates, the ruling coalition finally agreed on a system based on engine displacement and CO2 emissions that will be valid from July 2009 on.
In the meantime, the European Commission is pushing for mandatory emissions restrictions on all European car manufacturers. This would especially affect German car makers like BMW, Porsche, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz – brands known for high performance and high emissions. German Chancellor Merkel has come out against such blanket mandatory standards. But so far, most car manufacturers have failed to live up to voluntary commitments to reduce emissions.
International Policies
Germany made climate and energy a centerpiece of its dual presidency of the European Union and Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in 2007. Merkel presided over a landmark agreement by the 27 European nations to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by the year 2020. This commitment could rise to 30 percent if other developed nations like the United States followed suit – a rather unlikely development.
Despite the targets set in Brussels, however, Merkel admits that Europe alone cannot stop climate change. Europe is responsible for only around 15 percent of global emissions, while most of the world’s remaining emissions come from China and the United States with about 20 percent of the global total each.
While Germany may not be able to single-handedly save the world from climate catastrophe, it seeks to set an example. According to climate expert and Merkel advisor Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, Germany and Europe could lead the massive global efforts needed to slow climate change. “If we prove now that our society can remain prosperous, productive, and creative without carbon dioxide,” he says, “then we can convince the newly industrializing countries that this is the way to go.”
editor: Valdis Wish
latest update: April 17, 2009
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