Q&A: Germany’s Climate Action Programme 2026

In its Climate Action Programme 2026, the German government lays out 67 additional measures it intends to implement to put the country on track to meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030 and 2040. Germany is Europe’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, meaning its progress substantially affects wider EU climate targets.

The programme also contains 23 measures to reach climate targets in the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector. By law, it is also supposed to contain measures to reach targets for artificial carbon sinks, such as permanent underground CO₂ storage, but the government has yet to decide on these targets. 

The country’s Climate Action Law requires each new government to adopt a climate action programme, based on the annual emissions forecasts by the German Environment Agency (UBA), within twelve months of the start of the legislative period. The programme must aim to close the gaps between projected and required emissions cuts.

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 includes new proposals, measures the new government outlined in its coalition agreement, or has already adopted in its first months in office. 

Each relevant ministry proposes measures in its respective sector, before the entire government negotiates and adopts the full programme under the leadership of the environment and climate ministry. Each measure requires sufficient funding from Germany’s federal budget.

No, Germany is not on track to meet its climate targets, especially for the period post-2030.

The emissions projections from early 2025 show that Germany would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 63 percent by 2030 – failing the 65-percent target by about 25 million tonnes – if current policies are fully implemented, which remains uncertain. The projected target miss for 2040 is considerably larger: Germany would reduce emissions only by about 80 percent compared to 1990 levels, clearly failing the 88-percent target set for that year. The latest projections from March 2026 show an even bigger target miss for both 2030 and 2040, but the 2025 data are the legal guardrail for the 2026 programme.

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 – which is not included in the 65-percent climate target – is bleak: The climate law requires the sector to 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 drained peatlands. 

The country’s Council of Experts on Climate Change warned that the government’s coalition agreement remains too vague on climate policy to ensure emissions reduction targets are met, and called for an ambitious Climate Action Programme 2026.

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 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 electric vehicles (EVs) has been much slower than necessary, and Germany’s 44 million homes 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 adopted, for example 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,” UBA said in its 2025 emissions projections report.

The government said that its programme would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an additional total of 27.1 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents in the year 2030, thus closing the gap to the 65-percent target. It said the German state would provide a total of 8 billion euros in additional funding for all the measures from 2027 to 2030. 

Energy 

• Additional auctions for 12 gigawatts of onshore wind power to be online by 2030 (-6.5 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Expand district heating grids and the share of renewables used in these networks through higher subsidies (-2.3 Mt CO₂ in 2030)

Industry 

• New or refined support scheme for investments in electrification and the decarbonisation of process heat; to be developed by summer 2026 (-4.3 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Improved support programme for energy and resource efficiency in industry (-1 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Investment support for the circular economy (-0.6 Mt CO₂ in 2030)

Buildings

• Reduction of electricity prices, e.g. through lowering of grid fees (-1.3 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Additional measures (-0.3 Mt CO₂ in 2030)

Transport

• Reform of transport fuel rules to reduce fuel emissions (“Treibhausgasquote”) (-6.3 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Subsidy programme for around 800,000 new EVs; already adopted (-1 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Continue flat-rate public transport ticket (“Deutschlandticket”) (-1 Mt CO₂ in 2030)
• Additional measures including a support programme for EV-charging points in apartment blocks (total of -1.2 Mt CO₂ in 2030)

Agriculture

• Measures include state support for investments to lower emissions from fertiliser, and for the switch to climate-friendly fuels (-0.5 Mt CO₂ in 2030)

LULUCF (land use and land use change)

• “massively increase” support for nature-based climate action (additional 4.7 billion euros state funding for measures in LULUCF)

Politics & government 

Public broadcaster Tagesschau reported that Germany’s Green Party described the climate protection programme as a ‘brazen deception’. “Whilst environment minister Carsten Schneider is busy painting the facade green, economy minister Katherina Reiche is setting the house on fire at the back,’ said co-faction leader Katharina Dröge. Reiche has been criticised for policy plans that could slow down renewables expansion, and for her calls to relax EU climate targets. 

Industry & business 

President of German industry and business association DIHK, Peter Adrian, said that the climate action programme shows that there is “a growing gap between ambition and reality”, and that the government’s plans are putting “unnecessary costs” on the economy. 

“Instead of fixating on piecemeal annual targets and measures, the focus should be on the long-term goal of climate neutrality,” Adrian said. “Real progress requires a change of course: more market forces and international coordination, less detailed state control.” 

Ursula Heinen-Esser, president of renewable energy association BEE, said that the association “wholeheartedly welcomed” the climate action programme, and that especially the expansion of on-shore wind is promising. However, she also emphasised that the planned legislation currently drafted by the economy ministry, including the grid connection package and the building modernisation act, seems to not be aligned with the climate targets. 

The German solar industry association (BWE Solar) was also critical of the government’s presented measures. The association said the economy ministry’s proposals to abolish rooftop solar PV subsidies, to remove compensation claims of renewable energy producers in the event of temporary net congestion, and to relax renewable energy requirements for new heating systems are all incompatible with the aim of closing the CO2 emissions gap. 

Research & science 

The government-appointed independent Council of Experts on Climate Change heavily criticised the programme. The advisors said that they “assume that the measures are highly unlikely to be sufficient to ensure that climate protection targets are met.” The government may be “significantly overestimating” the actual greenhouse gas reduction impact of the programme. While the 2030 target could be reached, because the gap was relatively small, the 2040 greenhouse gas reduction target would “very likely” be missed. This was especially true, as the government has decided to weaken important measures in the transport and buildings sectors. 

PIK director Ottmar Edenhofer said it is “questionable” whether the presented measures will succeed at reducing fossil fuel dependency. In particular, he said the climate action programme provides insufficient emission reductions in the transport and building sectors. 

“According to our calculations, the Building Modernisation Act will result in emissions being significantly higher – by a total of 16 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents until 2030 and by as much as 230 million tonnes in the period to 2040 – than would have been expected under the previous legal framework,” Edenhofer said. “The delayed introduction of the second EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS 2) and the watering down of fleet limits for car producers make Germany and Europe even more dependent on oil and gas imports.”

Niklas Höhne, climate policy researcher and co-founder of think tank NewClimate Institute, reacted in a LinkedIn post by saying “creative accounting is not an adequate response to the climate and energy crisis”. He explained that the climate action programme is based on outdated projections, and that the positive aspects of the measures are calculated overly optimistically, whereas potential negative aspects, such as scrapping the phase-out of combustion engines and the 65 percent renewables rule in the building modernisation act, are not even taken into account. Additionally, he mentioned that measures “long considered effective”, such as phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies, and introducing a general speed limit and subsidies for small electric cars, are not included in the government’s plans. 

NGOs 

The German association of environmental NGO’s DNR said the climate action programme needs to be improved, because the current plans are insufficient for enabling an effective transition to renewable energy, which the NGO’s say is necessary for climate protection and energy security. The DNR argues that the additional 12 gigawatts of onshore wind capacity until 2030 is a good signal, but is not enough to reach the legal climate targets. The DNR also points out that it is unclear whether the government is able to mobilise the financial resources necessary to execute its plans. 

Environmental NGO WWF Deutschland also said that the climate action programme is insufficient for reaching the climate targets and for reducing dependency on fossil fuels. They also pointed out that the underlying data is outdated and that the latest projections show a much bigger emissions gap than what the presented measures account for. 

Environmental NGO DUH calls the climate action programme “illegal”, and stated it wants to challenge the government in court, if the government’s plans are not improved in the near future. The DUH said the presented measures are insufficient for reaching the government’s climate targets, and that additional measures are necessary, including the introduction of stricter speed limits and ending subsidies for combustion-engine cars.