In the media: Renewables target at risk; Germans scorn e-cars
“Germany risks missing binding EU target for renewables”
If Germany sticks to current policies, it will miss its official target of 18 percent renewables in final energy consumption by 2020 by 1 percentage point, the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) and German Wind Energy Association (BWE) warn in a joint press release. The growth corridors of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) are set too low for Germany to achieve the EU target and the recent strong growth in the wind energy sector will not be enough to change that, said the statement, referring to a scenario study commissioned by the two associations. While solar and bio-energy were curtailed in the power sector, not enough was done in heating and transport, the statement says. Germany will miss its emission targets for 2020 by 50 million tonnes CO2 even if all efficiency targets decided in December 2014 were implemented, the statement warns.
Read the press release in German here.
Download the study in German here.
Welt Online
“Germans scorn electric cars”
Germans buy fewer instead of more electric cars, Welt Online reports, citing a study by the Centre Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. In April, 23 percent fewer e-cars were registered than in March. The government will have to rethink its ambitious target of one million electric vehicles on Germany’s roads by 2020 or adjust support policies, experts told the newspaper.
Read the article in German here.
Deutschlandfunk
“The coal levy is the wrong way”
The energy transition should balance the targets of security of supply, power prices and climate protection and therefore it would be absolutely inappropriate to implement a levy on old coal-fired power stations, Michael Vassiliadis, head of industry and chemicals trade union IG BCE told radio station Deutschlandfunk in an interview. He said the levy would be a desaster for the brown coal sector and many jobs would be lost. He said that the IG BCE had suggested an alternative which would give more support to combined heat and power stations and transfer hard coal and lignite plants into a reserve and mothball them eventually.
Read the interview transcript in German here.
Energytransition.de
“German power bills are low compared to US average”
Comparing the average household power bills in the US and Germany, Craig Morris at energytransition.de finds that while Germans pay twice as much for one kilowatt-hour, their actual power bills are often smaller than in the US because they consume only a third as much electricity as Americans do.
Read the article in English here.
Süddeutsche Zeitung
“It is almost too late”
The non-binding CO2 reduction pledges made by countries ahead of the Paris climate conference are depressing, writes Lutz Wicke, former science director at the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. By 2030, China and India will increase their emissions by around 9 billion tonnes CO2 per year. In contrast, reductions in the EU and the US will add up to a mere 2.5 billion tonnes. To make matters worse, almost all other states combined will also significantly increase their emissions. In that case we will likely see disastrous climate change with 5-6 degrees warming by 2100. The Paris accord will still be necessary, at least it will write the 2-degree-target into law. But an effective policy “beyond Paris” is required, and this should entail a global price and cap for emissions, Wicke writes
