“Exiting coal by 2030”

Germany’s energy transition “is no energy transition” since the country continues to heavily rely on lignite power as its most important source of energy, Christian Schlesinger writes in the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. If Germany wants to lower its carbon emissions “it has to exit coal-fired power production,” he argues. Even current plans to shut down several lignite plants are by far insufficient for achieving the country’s 2020 climate target of reducing emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels, Schlesinger says. The most effective way to manage CO₂ reduction would be to put a higher price tag on it, “a simple economic hypothesis,” he argues. If the EU’s emission trading system (ETS) cannot be reformed properly, “a CO₂ tax would be an alternative,” he says.

Find the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal? for background.