Germany joins 31 nations in coal phaseout alliance PPCA

Germany has joined the international Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) but withheld fully endorsing the PPCA declaration, which would commit OECD countries to phase out unabated coal no later than 2030 and make them part of the alliance's so-called Declaration Group. All coal-fired power plants in Germany are to be taken off the grid by 2038 at the latest and "where possible, by 2035", the government affirmed in its climate package on 20 September. In July, German development bank KfW Group also decided to no longer finance new coal projects. This month, the PPCA enabled membership for governments in the process of developing and implementing ambitious actions to phase out coal. 32 national governments are currently members of the PPCA, which was founded at the COP23 in 2017. Sub-national governments, businesses and organisations make up the rest of its 91 members.

In January 2019, Germany's coal exit commission proposed a phase-out of coal-fired power generation by 2038 at the latest. As part of its 2030 climate action package, the government has said it will implement this phase-out "in close coordination with the federal states" and that the installed capacity of coal power will be reduced to 17 GW by 2030. The government has promised to enshrine the coal exit roadmap into law by November 2019.