Germany should revive ‘climate cabinet’ to resolve conflicts with other policy priorities – council
Germany’s next government should once again set up a climate cabinet of ministers to help streamline the country’s climate policies and better embed them in the overall political strategy, said the Council of Experts on Climate Change in a report published today (5 February).
The geopolitical situation has changed to such an extent in recent years that climate measures are increasingly coming into conflict with other policy priorities, said the council. Russia’s war against Ukraine and the consequences thereof have shown a larger need for defence capabilities and the state funds to pay for them. More barriers to free trade and the consolidation of anti-western alliances puts economic pressure on Germany and Europe, which are very dependent on global trade.
In recent years, climate policy has competed with other national priorities. Germany’s weaker economic development has negatively impacted the automotive industry and other industrial sectors, while the country’s infrastructure is in dire need of increased investment for maintenance and upgrades. Climate action measures increasingly have to compete for public funds also needed in defence, social spending, education, transport infrastructure and even climate adaptation.
As climate policy is linked to other policy fields, it can either lead to co-benefits or conflicts – and the next government should be better prepared to deal with them, said the council. The introduction of the climate ministry (BMWK) under the outgoing government did not help, as the responsibility for emission reductions continued to fall on other ministries like transport and agriculture.
“The reintroduction of the climate cabinet with a strong coordination unit in the chancellery could be a promising option,” said council head Hans-Martin Henning at a press conference. The council said the climate cabinet should be set up immediately after the start of the new legislative period, so that it could prepare the new government’s climate action programme – which is required by law within the first twelve months after taking office.
German voters head to the polls on 23 February to elect a new government. Parties will then enter negotiations, lasting weeks, to form a new coalition government, which will shape the coming four years of German climate policy.
In 2019, former chancellor Angela Merkel set up the climate cabinet as a group of ministers with responsibilities in key climate policy fields to decide on necessary legislation to reach the country’s 2030 climate targets.
Lagging behind on emission reductions
In today’s report, the council also presented the developments and trends in greenhouse gas emissions and assessed German climate policy in recent years. The council was created under the remit of the country’s climate law, and it is tasked with monitoring German climate policy.
As in previous reports, the experts once again criticised slow progress on emission reductions and projected the country will miss its targets without additional efforts.
The council states that efforts have been “recognisably intensified” under the outgoing government. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions has accelerated in recent years but not to a level that is sufficient to achieve the 2030 targets. A large part of the reduction happened in the energy sector, as the country continued to phase out coal and other fossil fuels. However, the building and transport sectors fell short of their reduction goals.
The report also shows that against earlier analyses, the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector is far from becoming a net emissions sink by 2030, which is the target set in the climate law. In 2023, the sector emitted far more emissions than it sequestered and was responsible for about 10 percent of Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The experts argue that the next government will have to increase efforts to reduce emissions across all sectors. Climate targets cannot be reached without “significant adjustments in the direction of climate action policy,” said council head Henning.
To date, the government has mainly used fiscal and regulatory climate policy instruments, the experts said. They cautioned that the potential for emission reductions through behavioural changes should be addressed more. In the transport sector, emissions could be reduced by incentivising the use of less carbon-intensive alternatives such as local public transport.
The council also criticised state support programmes. A common problem of such policies was that programmes such as the EV buyer’s premium benefitted richer households the most, said council co-head Brigitte Knopf. She said that more focus on low-income households was needed, by, for example, staggering the level of state support depending on the level of income.
In reaction to the report, NGOs called on the next government to increase climate policy efforts.
“Above all, the next German government must consistently focus its transport policy on reducing CO2 emissions,” said Martin Kaiser, executive director of Greenpeace Germany. It would have to invest “several hundred billion euros” in a socially-just ecological renewal, he added.
Christoph Bals, policy director at Germanwatch, said that the next government has to introduce a “strong mix of measures” to bring the country back on track. “After the Bundestag elections, we need a stable government majority that accelerates German climate policy and cleverly interweaves it with economic policy,” he said.
