Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions fall to a 70 year low, but is it a reduction that is likely to prove sustainable?
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Preliminary data released at the start of January by Agora, a think-tank supporting the German energy firm, Energiewend, showed that Germany’s CO2 equivalent emissions (CO2e) for 2023 was 673 million tonnes, which is a 46 per cent reduction from the reference year of 1990 and is the lowest level recorded since the 1950s. This figure exceeds the German government’s annual reduction target by 49 million tonnes.
There are two main reasons for why German CO2 emissions were 73 million tonnes lower than in 2022. Firstly, there’s been a big drop in coal-fired power generation, which is at its lowest level since the 1960s. This act alone reduced emissions by 44 million tonnes. This is a downward trend that’s likely to continue.
The second reason for the drop is due the decline in electrical demand which fell by 3.9 per cent. This reduction is thought to stem from a general economic downturn, which tends to lead to lower energy demand. As such, if and when the economy picks up again, energy demand might rise again. Other factors that also helped to so reduce German energy demand include the increase in renewable energy usage and the reduction in electricity exports to other countries.
However, Germans shouldn’t start celebrating such encouraging data quite yet. Agora goes on to make it clear that only 15 per cent of this drop can be attributed to permanent emissions reductions resulting from additional renewable energy capacity, efficiency gains and the switch to more planet-friendly fuels. About half the emissions cuts, the report goes on to warn, are due to short-term effects and that the 2023 emissions cuts of 2023 are not sustainable from an industrial or climate policy perspective.
Examples given of where German CO2 emissions are falling behind climate goals are in buildings and transportation, which has seen almost no downward reduction in three or four years. By failing to reduce these two areas, the report authors say that in the end Germany will probably miss its EU agreed climate targets.
In the UK figures have not yet been released for 2023 but the 2022 figures released by the UK government showed a fall in greenhouse gas emissions, but again this will likely due to a fall in electrical demand due to the exceptionally hot summer of 2022 and the high energy prices, which were particularly marked at the back end of 2022.
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