National energy and climate plans will not meet targets, EU warns

The EU Commission has warned EU countries including Germany that draft national plans for the coming decade are insufficient to achieve the bloc’s 2030 energy and climate targets. With existing policies and measures, "Germany is not on track to achieve" its 2030 emissions target for sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the Commission said. "While Germany's national and sector-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2030 are in line with the German long-term strategy [...], these are not always reflected in sector-specific national contributions and policies and measures (e.g. in the transport, building and agriculture sector)."
The Commission says Germany should take action to specify cost-efficient additional policies and measures, notably in the above sectors "to address the significant projected gap to its greenhouse gas target for sectors not covered by the [ETS] for 2030 of minus 38 percent compared to 2005." In its list with 11 recommendations for Germany, the Commission also says the country should provide a "sufficiently ambitious" national contribution to EU energy savings goals, and "list all energy subsidies, including in particular fossil fuels subsidies, and actions undertaken as well as plans to phase them out," among others.

According to the EU executive, renewable energy deployment on the EU level could fall short by 1.6 percentage points against a 32 percent target for 2030, and energy efficiency measures risk leaving a gap of 6.2 percentage points versus a 32.5 percent benchmark.