Wind industry urges Germany’s government to stand firm regarding 2050 climate-neutrality

The German Wind Energy Association (BWE) has called on the government to stand by the aim of achieving net-zero emissions across Europe by 2050 and urged concrete measures to reduce emissions. “Decarbonisation will happen. The German government must not backtrack on its announcement,” BWE head Hermann Albers said. With a view to the recent EU Council session, at which the bloc’s 28 members did not officially agree on climate neutrality by 2050, Albers said the setback should by no means be seen as a failure. “Almost all EU states are in favour of achieving a greenhouse gas-neutral EU by 2050,” Albers said. He added that a CO2 price could help trigger transformation in the heating and transport sectors and argued that wind power would be indispensable for providing the renewable energy needed to achieve this goal. “The blockade of onshore wind power expansion has to be removed,” Albers said, calling for the quicker issuing of construction licenses and faster repowering measures to replace old wind turbine models with newer and more efficient ones.

The European Council’s inability to agree on the tight 2050 climate target has thwarted ambitions by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to enhance the profile of her country as well as that of the EU as an international leader in climate action. At the same time, energy industry representatives have called on the government to act on its own climate targets, urging a massive expansion of renewable energy sources to achieve its goal of a 65 percent renewables share in power consumption by 2030.