Germany set for wider climate target miss than expected – climate council

Germany is on course to miss its climate targets by a wider margin than official emissions forecasts indicated earlier this year, the country’s independent Council of Experts on Climate Change said following an assessment of the projections published by the German Environment Agency (UBA) in March. The council criticised assumptions underlying the UBA calculations and said that current government reform plans were set to increase emissions compared to existing policies. 

The council “is therefore unable to confirm the very narrow target achievement for the years 2021 to 2030 indicated by the 2026 projection data,” the report said. “On the contrary, it anticipates that the target will not be met.”

The council, which comprises five experts on climate science, environment, social issues, and the economy, said the March projections underestimated future emissions in both the buildings sector and the energy industry.

The projections overestimated the rate of energy-efficient renovations of existing buildings and the replacement of fossil fuel heating with climate-friendly alternatives such as heat pumps. In addition, the planned reform of the legislation governing the phase out of fossil fuels in heating could push emissions in the sector even further above budget, the expert report said. 

Council member Tanja Kneiske said at a press conference that the reform plans were already having a negative effect. “The public debate itself is enough to cause uncertainty, leading to delayed decisions by citizens regarding their heating systems,” the physicist said.

A plan to freeze the national carbon price on heating and transport fuels next year could also lead to higher emissions than the projections assumed, which were based on a higher price trajectory. The worsening outlook in the buildings sector puts the country at growing risk of missing EU-mandated climate targets, the advisors said. 

In the energy sector, the expert council criticised several assumptions in the UBA projections report, including “overestimated” prices in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) in the coming years. The report said emissions in the sector are likely to decline less than projected.

Germany’s climate law sets out several targets. Alongside a goal of climate neutrality by 2045, the country must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by 2030 and by 88 percent by 2040. The expert council confirmed that these targets would be missed under current policies, and said the shortfall would be larger than the environment agency's projections suggested.

The climate law also sets annual emissions budgets. A legal reform in 2024 introduced the requirement that the country must stay within a cumulative emissions limit for each decade – for example, Germany must not exceed 6,199 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO₂ eq.) between 2021 and 2030. The expert council, however, estimates that Germany will overshoot this limit by around 60 to 100 million tonnes.

The council re-iterated its assessment of the package of climate action measures the government cabinet approved earlier this year, arguing that it is insufficient to help Germany meet its climate targets. 

“The targets will not be met even if the programme’s emission-reduction effect is fully attained,” council head Barbara Schlomann said. “But we have our doubts about that, too.” She called on the government to introduce more effective climate measures, with a particular focus on the period after 2030, where the gap to emissions reduction targets grows wider. Updating the climate action programme could also protect the government from further legal challenges to its climate policy, the council said in its report. 

Environmental NGO Germanwatch criticised current reform plans warning they risked widening the gap to climate targets. “In the past week alone, the cabinet passed several draft laws that would further widen the climate action gap identified in the emissions projections report, rather than closing it,” said Lutz Weischer, head of the Berlin office. The reform plans on heating, the electricity sector and the German position on EU car emissions limits “are indicative of a climate policy that makes it impossible to meet climate targets – and which, moreover, runs counter to economic trends,” he said. Germanwatch called on the government to back electrification, both as a strategy to modernise the economy and to reduce dependence on energy imports.

NGO Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) argued that in the end citizens “would pay for the climate policy mistakes of the government, through higher heating and transport fuel costs.” Managing director Verena Graichen called on parliamentarians to push for changes focussed on renewable energy in the draft heating law before it is approved later this year.