Q&A: Germany’s Climate Action Programme 2026
1. What is Germany’s Climate Action Programme 2026?
In its climate action programme, the German government lays out the measures it intends to implement to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030 and 2040. The programme also contains measures to reach climate targets in the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, and for artificial carbon sinks, such as permanent underground CO2 storage. Germany is Europe’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, meaning its progress substantially affects wider EU climate targets.
The programme is based on the annual projections for future emissions by the German Environment Agency (UBA). With a mixture of policies, legislative changes and other regulatory measures, the government must put the country back on track to meet its targets. The programme will include new proposals, alongside measures the new government proposed in its coalition agreement or has already adopted in its first months in office. The independent Council of Experts on Climate Change assesses the programme before it is adopted by cabinet. There will also be a public consultation with the states, economic associations and civil society.
The country’s Climate Action Law requires each new government to decide a climate action programme within twelve months of the start of the legislative period. While a 2024 reform weakened the law, the requirement for each new government to adopt a climate programme was kept.
Each relevant ministry proposes measures in its respective sector within six months. The ministries subsequently start potentially contentious negotiations to adopt the full programme under the leadership of the environment and climate ministry. Each measure requires sufficient funding from Germany’s federal budget, and the programme must aim to close the target gaps.
2. Is Germany on track to meeting its climate targets?
No, Germany is not on track to meet its climate targets, especially for the period post-2030.
The latest emissions projections data from early 2025 show that Germany would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 63 percent by 2030 – failing the 65-percent target – and only if current policies are fully implemented, which is uncertain.
The projected target miss for 2040 would be considerably larger. At current trends, Germany is set to reduce emissions only by about 80 percent compared to 1990 levels, clearly failing the 88-percent target set for that year.
While the energy, industry and agriculture sectors are largely on track to help meet the 2030 target, transport and buildings are lagging.
The outlook for the land use sector is bleak: The climate law says that the sector should be a net carbon sink and stipulates targets for 2030, 2040 and 2045. However, the sector is currently emitting more greenhouse gases than it is absorbing from the atmosphere, for example due to the poor state of Germany’s forests. Years with long droughts and bark beetle damages have turned forests into net carbon sources. “The current measures and instruments are nowhere near sufficient to meet the targets” in the LULUCF sector, said environment agency UBA in its emissions projections report.
The country’s Council of Experts on Climate Change has already warned that the government’s coalition agreement remains too vague on climate policy to make sure emissions reduction targets are met, and called for an ambitious Climate Action Programme 2026.
3. Which sectors require special attention?
Cutting emissions in the transport and buildings sectors has proven to be particularly challenging for Germany.
Both sectors are projected to overshoot their emissions budgets significantly for the years until 2030, which could even lead to a costly EU target miss. The shift to electric mobility and the expansion of low-emission heating are key levers for progress, but fossil fuels still dominate in passenger cars and household heating systems. The uptake of EVs has been much slower than necessary, and Germany’s 43 million apartments are still heated mainly with gas (56%) and oil (17%).
The government has made first announcements on measures to incentivise clean technologies, but major policy changes have yet to be decided, for example on a law to phase out fossil fuel heating.
The industry sector is projected to overachieve its targets in the coming years, but this can largely be attributed to a weak economy, which leads to lower production and therefore lower emissions. However, current policies do not yet guarantee “the long-term transformation and the planning security required for it,” said UBA in its emissions projections report.
4. When will the government adopt the 2026 climate action programme?
The government is legally required to present the programme within twelve months of the start of the legislative period, which sets the deadline at 25 March 2026.
At the start of the new government coalition’s term, environment and climate minister Carsten Schneider said he aimed to agree the programme by the end of 2025. He later argued that an earlier decision would avoid the height of political campaigns ahead of several state elections in 2026.
However, by late autumn 2025, government sources told Clean Energy Wire the programme would not be adopted before the end of the year. “In line with the climate action law, the government will present the programme by March 2026,” Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary in the environment ministry, told Tagesspiegel Background.
