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?
 | Climate MeterGerman climate policies at a glance and their assessment (Graphic: WWF/Allianz Climate Scorecard) |
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 is now contemplating stepping up that commitment: reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050.
National Policies
Just how Germany should meet these ambitious targets, however, is not clear. 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 are now discussing vehicle-based CO2 taxes from to 2008 on. Under such a tax system, cars emitting less CO2 would be less expensive than others with similar horse power. The European Commission is pushing for mandatory emissions restrictions on all European car manufacturers, which 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 failed to live up to voluntary commitments to reduce emissions.
International Policies
Germany plans to make climate and energy a centerpiece of its dual presidency of the European Union and Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in 2007. In February, 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 the United States (21.8 percent of the global total), China (17.9 percent) and Russia (5.7 percent). One UK study at the end of 2005 showed that two thirds of European countries were not on course to meet their 2012 Kyoto emission-reduction targets for 2012.
Merkel’s biggest opportunity to influence the global agenda will come at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. There, heads of the eight leading industrialized nations will meet to discuss a range of international issues, from energy security to economic relations with climate change high on the agenda. Fundamental disagreements exists between the U.S. and other G8 countries over emissions caps and international emissions trading schemes created by the Kyoto Protocol.
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
publishing date: June 4, 2007
