“German government falls behind on its obligations“

The decision by US President Donald Trump to pull his country out of the global Paris Climate Agreement has been met with dismay and defiance by the German government, Silke Kersting writes on Handelsblatt Online. Meanwhile, environmental organisations criticise Germany for its largely stagnant emissions reduction and reprimand it for taking“ “mincing steps at best,” she writes. “The federal government has no real clue how ambitious climate protection could work in an industrialised country”, Kersting argues, pointing at watered down ambitions in Germany’s Climate Action Plan 2050. Olaf Tschimpke, president of the environmental group NABU, says that “Germany finally needs a legal framework for exiting coal,” which is responsible for 80 percent of its emissions, Kersting writes. According to Tschimpke, the government’s refusal to adopt such a framework lets Germany “drag behind its global obligations and leaves people in coal regions mired in uncertainty”.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal? and the CLEW dossier The energy transition and climate change for more information.