“Germany’s economy minister says the country beat its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% last year compared to 1990 levels.
Peter Altmaier said figures show Germany’s emissions of planet-heating gases were 42% lower in 2020 than three decades ago, confounding warnings that the country couldn’t meet its goal.
While the coronavirus pandemic helped reduce emissions, Altmaier said the target might have been achieved anyway even without the drop in economic activity because of the lockdown.
Altmaier said the figures proved those wrong who had doubted the country would meet its goal. ‘We have now achieved it, not just because of corona but because emissions trading worked,’ he said.
Companies in the energy and industrial sectors are allocated a certain number of emissions in Europe. These can either be used or sold, providing a financial incentive to reduce emissions. Starting this year, Germany also introduced a national emissions trading systems for the heating and transport sectors.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed a target to reduce emissions across the European Union to ‘net zero’ by 2050, meaning the amount released into the atmosphere can’t be greater than the amount captured again by natural or artificial means. Scientists say achieving that goal will help prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times.”
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