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Germany wants to be climate neutral by 2045. But a panel of government climate advisers says it’s already in danger of missing a key target to cut planet-heating emissions by the end of the decade.
Germany’s climate advisory body has called for new policy measures to slash greenhouse gas emissions, warning that the country looks set to miss its 2030 climate change targets.
In a report published on Monday, the Council of Experts on Climate Change said Germany was unlikely to reach its goal of cutting 65% of emissions by the end of the decade compared to 1990 levels.
The panel, which is appointed by the government and has independent authority to assess the country’s climate performance, said sectors such as transport and construction in particular were struggling to decarbonize.
The findings contradict statements from German Climate Protection Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who said in March that projections from the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) showed emissions were falling and Germany would meet its goal.
My country tries to go carbon neutral in a way that’s physically possible to do so, but sadly our efforts here are way meaningless if a much bigger and more contaminating country like Germany goes and opens up coal plants.
We’re a tiny country, we hardly have an impact, Germany is not.
Same. Feels like the older generations just hijacked the discourse on how to decarbonize. “Oh you want to reduce carbon emissions? Fine. But we’ll do it in a way that makes us feel good.”
Boomers had plenty of time to adjust their lifestyle. They failed. Now they want us to take drastic measures to make up for it (or they will want to in the coming decades).
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We haven’t opened up any coal plants in the last 10 years. Only have been closing them down consistently. Go somewhere else with your populist misinformation please.
Edit: also, I’ve been to Chile. 20 million inhabitants (1/4 of Germany) Is hardly “tiny”. And on all those endless bus rides through the Andes and vast windy places, I’ve maybe seen 10 wind turbines total. Similar for solar. Electric vehicles and corresponding infrastructure basically don’t exist. So kindly don’t shit on a country that actually conducts meaningful changes while elevating your own, which evidently does much less.
Total 2022 Co2 emissions:
Germany: 673,6 Mt Source
Chile: 93 Mt Source
2022 % of green energy of total installed electrical capacity:
Germany : 46% source
Chile: 56,5% source
I saw, like everyone else all the news of Germany expanding coal mines, reactivating coal power plants while having the means to not do that (keep using nuclear a while longer), I’m 19, climate change is scary A.F., what can I say, It’s a terrible news to hear that a western country reopens that kind of plant just because reasonably irrational fear of the alternative to it, here in Chile there is a big compromise to do something about it, but like the figures I show above, we don’t matter that much, is hearth breaking to know that my whole country depends on the collective action of countries like you, I feel I can do nothing but to watch while still having to face the consequences.
The reason for not reopening nuclear power plants is not “irrational fear”, although that might be the reason for closing them in the first place, depending on your point of view. Reopening them is plain impossible in a realistic timeframe. Since the closure was something that had been decided many years ago, all of the plants that have been closed already are past their service limit and would have to be renovated / serviced before reactivating them, which is a lengthy process (5+ years). Additionally, some plants that were still open actually were used past their safety limits solely because Russia started a war and reduced our access to natural gas, which was meant to be a kind of intermediary (I know, far from ideal), but there is no feasible way of extending their use any further.
In any case, we are not building more fossil capacity. The only kind of power generation that is being built up is renewable. Nuclear is no renewable source, the fuel is finite. Also, I wonder: what is Chile planning to do with their spent fuel rods? They are proving to be quite the problem for us, Google “Endlager Asse” for some sobering information.
The expansion of coal mines is heavily contested here, we had lengthy and sometimes violent protests at the sites which were unfortunately quelled by police. Again, though - no coal plants were opened or even reopened. All of our coal plants have their end of life decided already and will be closed within the next few years.
I don’t know your linked sources (never heard of the site) and am not in the mood for checking their correctness or comparability, so I’m not going to argue about them.
But, pretending that my country matters that much more regarding our emissions is a little dishonest. As a country, we make up less than 2% of Global emissions, with that figure shrinking rapidly (as your sources confirm, we are reducing per-capita and also total emissions year by year). I agree that saving the world from climate change depends on collective action, but kindly shit on countries that don’t take said action and have a much larger impact on the planet (especially per capita), like, say, China, which has been building quite the amount of coal plants in the last few years or the US, which has insane per capita emissions and heavy opposition to any green technology.
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I can agree to that; ½👓