Germany presents fossil fuel transition plan, reaffirms 2045 climate target

Germany's cabinet has approved a roadmap to phase out oil, coal and gas across energy, industry, buildings and transport, reaffirming the country's target of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045.

“This roadmap lays out the policy framework and the key strategies Germany will be pursuing in the various sectors in order to achieve its goal of climate neutrality and thus transition away from the use of fossil fuels no later than 2045,” the document said. 

German civil society welcomed the roadmap, arguing that it increases the pressure on others to follow suit. “We expect other countries to now present their roadmaps as well,” said Petter Lydén, head of international climate policy at Germanwatch, adding that the UN climate change conference COP31 in Turkey in November offers an excellent platform. 

Germany is the third country to present such a roadmap, after France and the Netherlands. At last year’s climate conference, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had launched the process to create a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF). However, global efforts to exit oil, coal and gas continue to stall in formal UN climate negotiations. A group of about 60 governments met in Santa Marta, Colombia, earlier this year to provide the process with fresh impetus, alongside the COP process. Outgoing UN secretary-general António Guterres this week urged all governments to provide national roadmaps. 

While environmental groups welcomed the international impact of Germany’s plan, they criticised lagging domestic action by the current coalition government. “This once again highlights the glaring discrepancy between Germany’s international stance and its domestic actions,” said Fentje Jacobsen, co-head of the climate and energy department at environmental NGO WWF Germany. She said the plan merely reiterated existing targets without setting additional ambitions.

A spokesperson for the environment ministry confirmed at a press conference that the plan sets out well-known measures the country has previously decided on. Germany has a legally binding target of climate neutrality by 2045, and in the roadmap, the government argued that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions is inextricably linked to gradually transitioning away from fossil fuels” in energy. Burning fossil fuels caused over 83 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany in 2024, it added. 

Germany’s energy consumption continues to rely massively on fossil fuels. In 2025, oil, coal and fossil gas made up more than three quarters of the energy the country used. Oil is mainly needed as a transport fuel, coal to generate electricity and heat, as well as in certain industries, and gas is used for heating, industry and electricity. 

The renewables-based system of the future will require significantly less primary energy, as EVs, heat pumps and other electricity-based technologies are much more efficient. That means not every joule of energy from fossil fuels used today must be replaced with renewables. Wind power, solar PV, biomass and hydropower covered about 56 percent of Germany’s electricity consumption in 2025.

Germany also remains heavily dependent on imports. These cover around 98 percent of oil, 95 percent of fossil gas, and all hard coal that is consumed. Lignite is the only major domestic fossil fuel source. Germany’s net imports of fossil fuels cost about 76 billion euros in 2024, the government said. 

Environment minister Carsten Schneider highlighted that the strategy was about more than climate protection. “The money we previously spent on importing oil and gas will, in future, be increasingly channelled into creating local value,” he said.

Environmental organisations also criticised that current government policies counteracted the fossil fuel phaseout. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition is in favour of new gas extraction and has decided to introduce state support for new gas-fired power plants to ensure electricity supply security. These are meant to be climate neutral by 2045, for example by being converted to run on green hydrogen or being equipped with carbon capture technology (CCS), but questions remain regarding the future availability of affordable fuel, as well as around the costs of capturing and storing carbon.

Merz’s government also implemented a reform that weakened rules to phase out fossil fuels in heating, and has advocated for laxer EU car emission limits. The renewables sector and NGOs say that a reform on renewables support and grid access currently debated in parliament would create investment uncertainty, jeopardise the expansion of wind and solar energy, and slow down climate action.

“Those who wish to remain credible on the international stage and also pursue policies at home that serve the people’s interests must finally drive forward sustainable change, rather than clinging to outdated dependencies on fossil fuels,” said WWF’s Jacobsen.

Driven by the market, the country’s coal phase-out remains on schedule for completion at the latest by 2038 – even if the Iran war, energy crisis, delays to replacement capacity, and questions about earlier closure commitments are testing the resilience of the coal exit compromise between industry, unions, governments and civil society. The government recently said it would postpone a stocktake report on the coal exit’s progress to 2027. The findings would be used to decide whether the final phase-out deadline could be brought forward to 2035. 

A recent increase in electric vehicle (EV) registrations has given rise to hopes that e-mobility, a slow starter in Germany, will eventually drive oil out of the energy mix. EU car emissions rules mean that EVs would make up 100 percent of new car registrations by 2035, the government’s roadmap states. Projections point to a total of 7 million EVs on Germany’s roads by 2030, it says. Currently, there are 49 million passenger cars registered in the country. 

Germany’s gas exit is a more difficult challenge. Overall gas demand has been dropping since at least the onset of COVID in 2020 and has been pushed down further by the energy crisis in the years following the pandemic, but the country must overcome major structural hurdles in the heating sector, heavy industry, and the grid. 

There is broad agreement that Germany would use very little fossil fuels by mid-century. However, the government’s roadmap does not necessarily spell out the end of all fossil oil, coal and gas use by 2045. The government has said it would allow carbon capture and storage (CCS) also for gas-fired power plants, and it remains to be seen whether affordable alternative fuels derived from green hydrogen can be made available in time for the transition in sectors like aviation. 

The terminology around an exit from climate-damaging fossil fuels has been controversial at the global stage, where countries have debated “ending”, “exiting”, “phasing out”, “phasing down” and other options for an agreement. At the 28^th UN climate change conference in Dubai three years ago, governments agreed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems,” without setting an end date.

CLEW asked the government whether the roadmap meant that Germany targets a full fossil fuel exit by 2045, but the environment ministry did not reply in time for the publication of this article.