Germany pours cold water on EU’s clean energy ambitions

German energy minister Peter Altmaier has rejected calls from a group of EU countries to increase the share of renewables to between 33 and 35 percent of the bloc’s energy mix by 2030, Frédéric Simon writes in EURACTIV. Speaking at an 11 June Energy Council meeting in Luxembourg attended by the EU member states’ energy ministers, Altmaier said voters across Europe had lost faith in politics due in part to the “unachievable targets” on renewable energy, adding that Germany’s efforts to achieve its renewable energy targets cost German taxpayers 25 billion euros a year. “And if we are setting targets that are definitely above 30 percent, that means that within a decade, our share has to be more than doubled – clearly more than doubled,” he said, predicting that Germany would not be able to achieve its goal of putting one million electric vehicles on the roads by 2020.

Read the article in English here.

For more details on the talks in Luxembourg, read the article on Climate Home News.