Environment minister: Ultimate climate plan will have more precise goals

Federal environment minister Barbara Hendricks said that the government’s Climate Action Plan 2050 will show more precise goals than her ministry’s final version, which is now in the consultation process with other ministries. “We will have to put back numbers and concrete measures, that’s what we’ll work on in the coordination with the other ministries,” said Hendricks at a press conference in Berlin. Her ministry’s version had been criticised in the press for omitting or weakening some goals or substituting concrete targets of the original draft with “xx [value will be set during coordination between the ministries]”. At the press conference, she presented another big plan, the Integrated Environment Programme 2030. It formulates guiding principles and suggestions about how “key areas of policy, economy and society can be designed environmentally friendly and sustainable”. “We can’t simply continue the way we do things now,” Hendricks said. Proposals include a “second price tag” for certain products that tells the consumers about its environmental costs, and the suggestion that all new passenger cars should be emissions free by 2030. Hendricks made clear that her proposals “deliberately go beyond the competencies of my ministry”, arguing that the ecologic transition could only happen with a “wide alliance of politics, economy and society”.

Read the CLEW article Ministry avoids concrete targets in weakened Climate Action Plan for more information.

Find the ministry's press release on the Environment Programme 2030 in German here.