“Climate Action Programme works like a stimulus package”

The German government’s Climate Action Programme 2020, started in 2014 to help the country reach its goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020, could in fact be called a stimulus package, according to federal environment minister Barbara Hendricks. Her ministry (BMUB) published a PwC study on the economic and ecologic effects of the programme, saying that the economic benefits clearly outweighed the costs of the proposed measures. “The investments triggered lead to saving energy costs, more domestic added value, and more jobs,” said Hendricks in a press release. In total, the programme will create 430,000 additional jobs and a GDP increase of 1 percent, by 2020, writes BMUB.

Read the press release in German here, the full PwC report in German here.

Read about the Details of the Climate Action Programme in this CLEW factsheet, and find more background in the CLEW article Ministry projections highlight risk of Germany missing emissions goal.