2050 climate neutrality 'magical thinking' – German industry association president
dpa / Clean Energy Wire
The ambitious climate goal of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050 falls in the "category of magical thinking rather than realistic political target setting”, Dieter Kempf, president of German industry association BDI, told news agency dpa. "Politicians are setting ever more ambitious climate goals without bothering to find answers as to how we can achieve them in industrial and social policy," said Kempf.
Chancellor Angela Merkel recently signed on to the goal of German greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. The federal parliament in November 2019 passed the country's first major climate law, which also states that striving for this target forms the basis of climate action efforts under the law. In a 2018 study, the BDI said that targeting such an ambitious emissions reduction goal is only realistic if other industrialised countries made comparable efforts.
Together with workers union association DGB, the BDI called for an ambitious public investment plan focussing on broadband expansion, transport infrastructure and "investments in the fundamental transformation of the economy to protect the climate". Managing demographic ageing and decarbonising the economy will require major efforts in coming years, the industry-sponsored research institute German Economic Institute (IW) said in an accompanying policy paper.
