Germany on course to achieve 2030 climate targets: official

BERLIN, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Germany is for the first time on track to meet its 2030 national climate targets, Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said on Friday.

Following the publication of projections by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Habeck said: "If we stay on course, we will achieve our 2030 climate targets."

By 2030, Europe's largest economy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent compared to 1990 levels.

According to UBA, Germany's greenhouse gas emissions are projected to fall by almost 64 percent by 2030. In 2021, the agency had forecast a much smaller reduction, of 49 percent.

"This underlines the fact that the measures taken in the meantime are having an effect," the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said.

Last year, around 673 million tons of greenhouse gases were released in Germany, a 10.1 percent reduction from the previous year. This was the sharpest decline since 1990, according to UBA.

The reasons for this development are the "increased share of renewable energies, a decline in fossil energy production, and lower energy demand from industry and consumers," UBA said.

According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), wind power replaced coal as the most important energy source in 2023. At the same time, renewable energies generated 56 percent of Germany's electricity, up from 46 percent in the previous year.

To achieve its emissions reduction, Germany is seeking to cover 80 percent of its electricity needs with renewables by 2030. The country aims to be climate-neutral by 2045, five years earlier than the European Union as a whole.

However, despite the generally positive trend, not all sectors are achieving their targets. Although the transport and building sectors were able to reduce their emissions in 2023, both sectors once again failed to meet the legal targets set by the government, according to UBA.

The transport sector in particular "must take action to protect the climate," UBA said. The "main driver of the low decline in emissions is not effective climate protection measures, but the decreasing mileage in road freight transport."