Germany’s Record Low CO2 Emissions: A Milestone Victory for Climate Neutrality

2024-01-05 07:05:01
A wind farm in Krauschwitz (Germany), December 4, 2023. FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS

In its efforts to achieve climate neutrality by 2045, Germany recorded an important milestone victory in 2023. According to provisional figures for the past year, published Thursday January 4 by the Agora research centera specialist in energy transition, the country emitted 673 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (teqCO2), a drop of 46% compared to its 1990 level. This is the lowest level of emissions since the 1950s , experts note, the reduction exceeds the annual target set by the German climate law by 49 million tonnes.

If a drop was expected, due to the economic recession, it turned out to be much stronger than observers had anticipated. Two elements were at work, it is noted in the report. First, electricity production from coal fell to its lowest level since the 1960s. This effect alone saved 44 million tCO2eq. It is explained by an exceptional drop in electricity demand across the Rhine in 2023 (– 3.9%), by the progression of renewables, as well as by a reduction in electricity exports. Imports have also increased, at the risk of contradiction: only half of the electrons purchased by Germany from its neighbors came from renewable sources, and a quarter from nuclear power, particularly from France… the same year when Berlin closed the last atomic power plants in the country.

The second effect is due to the high level of energy prices in 2023, which weighed on the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases. Production of energy-intensive specialties (mainly chemicals and steel, but also glass, paper and ceramics) contracted by 11%, while the economy as a whole only fell by 0.3%. . Chemistry, a major German specialty, played an important role in this decline: due to the cessation of imports of cheap Russian gas, many installations, which had become unprofitable, ceased production.

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No improvement in construction and transport

These effects encourage Agora’s experts to moderate any excessive enthusiasm regarding Germany’s decarbonization trajectory: it is not certain that this development is sustainable. According to their calculations, only 15% of emissions reductions are actually linked to the development of renewables or other sustainable measures, the rest being explained by the economic situation. In construction and transport, decarbonization objectives have thus been largely missed. Once the country emerges from recession, a large share of CO2 production might start to rise once more. Or end up elsewhere, in the event of relocation of heavy industry, which has no impact on overall emissions.

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