Internal gov paper calls for “honest debate” about 2020 climate target - report

An internal federal government paper calls for an “honest debate about possible consequences” from learning that the country will likely miss its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target by a wide margin, report Klaus Stratmann and Thomas Sigmund in Handelsblatt. The paper, seen by Handelsblatt, says that high costs for consumers, businesses and the state mean it was “hardly realisable” to achieve bigger reductions in the remaining three years, writes Stratmann and Sigmund. While a coal exit seemed like a “fast and relatively easily implementable measure”, the follow-up costs for the affected regions had to be taken into account. Achieving the CO₂ reduction necessary to reach the 2020 goal solely by exiting coal “cannot be expected or supported in light of the connected target conflicts”, says the paper. [The federal government press office declined to comment on the origin and authenticity of the paper.]

Read the article (behind paywall) in German here.

For background, read the articles Germany set to widely miss climate targets, env ministry warns and Coalition watch – The making of a new German government.