Germany is currently on track to miss its legally binding climate targets by 2030, despite government projections to the contrary, the Council of Experts on Climate Change has warned.
According to the council’s review of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions for full-year 2025, and projections for 2026, emissions in Germany have remained ‘virtually stable’ over the past year, with a reduction in industrial and energy sector emissions offset by increased buildings and transport emissions.
Emissions budget
This, coupled with 2026 projection data, means that Germany’s emissions pathway is likely to exceed the allowable emissions budget for 2021–2030 by between 60 and 100 million tonnes of Mt CO₂-eq.
“The assumptions underlying the calculations in particular for the energy and buildings sectors need to be updated,” commented council chair Barbara Schlomann. “For both sectors, we assume that actual emissions are likely to be higher than reported.”
Missed target
While Germany’s government has projected that the country is set to narrowly comply with its emissions budget by 2030, with a remaining buffer of 4.5 Mt CO₂-eq, the council has said that current policy and economy conditions will mean this target will be missed.
It also warned that Germany is also increasingly likely to miss a number of longer-term climate goals, including a national target to reduce emissions by 65% by 2030; a 88% reduction target for 2040; obligations under the EU Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), land-use and forestry sector targets; and the country’s goal of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045.
The council also undertook an assessment of Germany’s Climate Action Programme 2026, and determined that the package of actions outlined therein would fail to close the country’s emissions gap even if fully implemented.
“In our assessment, the actual mitigation effect of the programme is likely to be considerably lower than assumed by the Federal Government,” Schlomann added.
The Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) is an independent panel of five experts from five different disciplines, and currently includes Dr. Barbara Schlomann (Chair), Prof. Dr. Marc Oliver Bettzüge (Deputy Chair), Prof. Dr. Dr. Tanja Kneiske, Prof. Dr. Allister Loder and Prof. Dr. Julia Pongratz. Read more here.
