VW says quicker German coal exit needed to reduce car sector’s carbon footprint

Carmaker VW says an earlier German coal exit is necessary for the company to ensure its electric car fleet receives the clean power it needs to effectively meet carbon emissions reduction requirements, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by Focus Online. At the international car fair IAA in Munich, VW board chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch said there are “important questions” regarding the energy transition that “need to be resolved urgently”. This would especially concern the “framework conditions for electric mobility”,  meaning how enough clean power can be produced “and also to swiftly end coal power”,  Pötsch said. He added that grid expansion would be another major issue that urgently needs to be addressed to meet the requirements for a cleaner transport sector and a dense charging infrastructure. “Our industry’s future is electric. That’s why it is a central task for policymakers to remove existing obstacles on the way to that future as quickly as possible.”

The current latest end date for coal is 2038, but the target year has come increasingly under fire in recent months, as worsening climate forecasts and rising emissions prices are reducing coal power’s ecologic acceptability and economic viability. At the same time, Germany is struggling to ensure an adequate expansion of renewable power sources needed to replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power capacity.