In 2023, Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by up to 21% compared to the previous year. However, half of the reduction in emissions is due to the decline in production volumes of the German industry.
In total, Germany emitted 673 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year, the lowest amount since the 1950s, think tank Agora Energiewende said on Thursday. Emissions also fell by 21% compared to 2022, writes the Financial Times.
However, the main contributor to the decline in emissions was the decline in production volumes in German industry, not improvements in energy efficiency. The latter was responsible for only 15% of the decline, while over 50% was due to the slowdown in industrial activity.
The German industrial sector represents almost 20% of the country’s economy, while in France, the United Kingdom and the United States the corresponding figure is less than half.
While the German economy as a whole contracted by 0.3 percent last year, output from energy-intensive industries such as chemicals and steel fell by 11 percent.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck, representing the German Green Party, said he was happy that for the first time in German history more than half of the electricity consumed comes from renewable energy sources. At the same time, the minister admitted that the decline of industry is bad news and that he would like to see a climate-neutral Germany with a strong industrial sector.
Siegfried Russwurm, president of the Association of German Industrial Companies (BDI), said that the government does not understand the sector’s problems and that the sector needs concrete help to increase its competitiveness.
Simon Müller, head of the German branch of Agora Energiewende, also said that moving emissions abroad together with the industry does not make climate sense. According to Müller, the industry needs help to produce green steel and replace gas with electricity in industrial processes.
However, the representative of the think tank admitted that Germany’s budget crisis means that the government’s ability to contribute to industrial modernization is limited.
2024-01-04 17:27:00
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