A recently released climate protection report from the German government indicates a growing risk that the nation will fail to meet its climate targets for both 2040 and 2045. The report, detailed in a Politico publication, concludes that current measures are insufficient to achieve these ambitious goals.
While progress has been made and emissions remain on track across various sectors in the medium term – with projections suggesting the 2021-2030 annual emission targets outlined in the Climate Protection Act can be met if current policies are enacted – significant challenges persist.
Specifically, the transportation and building sectors are identified as areas of concern. Although a continuous decline in emissions from the transportation sector is evident, the initial high baseline represents a considerable hurdle. The report notes a lack of a clear trend shift towards accelerated emission reduction.
In the building sector, the report projects the deployment of heat pumps in over eleven million buildings and the connection of approximately 3.5 million buildings to district heating networks by 2045. However, it asserts that the current pace of change is too slow to meet the targets for 2030 or 2045.
Industrial emissions saw a slight increase of 0.1% in 2024 compared to the previous year, attributed to a rebound in the production of raw steel and ammonia. Despite this uptick, the industrial sector met its target for 2024 and is projected to surpass its goals in 2030, a trend mirrored in the agriculture and waste management sectors. However, the report cautions that this positive trajectory is expected to slow down after 2030, ultimately leading to a failure to achieve the 2045 industrial climate target, with anticipated emissions from industrial power plants and process heat cited as contributing factors.