Analysts and researchers say new German government unlikely to reach climate targets

Challenging Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent promise that Germany will find ways to meet its 2020 climate targets, nine analysts and researchers contacted by Bloomberg have said that the country will probably fail in its efforts, report Mathew Carr, Brian Parkin, and Lars Paulsson. “Merkel’s stoic approach to meet the non-binding 2020 goal would most likely come down to how tough the governing coalition is prepared to be on the nation’s biggest polluters. Plants burning coal still produced about 40 percent of the nation’s power last year.”
There is no way the goal can be met by improving energy efficiency or encouraging electric car use at the pace required within four years, said Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Jahn Olsen. The significant differences in the FDP’s and the Greens’ positions mean that Germany probably will not be able to put together a plan to hit the target during the coalition negotiations, said Deepa Venkateswaran, an analyst in London at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Read the article in English here.

For background, read the CLEW article Germany heads for "spectacular" 2020 climate target miss - study.