Country Review

GERMANY

CO2 Emissions in Germany have been reduced between 1990 and 2002 by 237 Mt. This reduction was essentially achieved in the early 90’s due to the transformation of the industry in East Germany, by closing old inefficient plants and replacement with highly efficient ones. The largest absolute reductions have been achieved by the power industry -66 Mt. Even larger relative reductions have been made by the industry (-36 %). Private consumers increased their CO2 emissions by 7 %. The largest relative growth of emissions has been observed in the transport sector (mainly road transport), which increased emissions by one quarter in this time period. Absolute emissions, without corrections for temperature effects have not changed very much in the last years and an extrapolation of this trend indicates, that the political targets for CO2-reduction probably will not be achieved.

In order to limit the increase of global average temperatures to less than 2 °C in the current century, which is seen as the limit for acceptable climate change impacts, the “Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen” postulates the necessity of temporary CO2 storage, in addition to energy efficiency measures and increased use of renewable energy resources. Insurance payments for damage caused by extreme weather events Costs caused have increased by a factor of 15 in the past three decades and the “Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung” estimates, that even one degree centigrade of global average temperature rise might cause damages by natural disasters that could sum up to 137x109 € until 2050 in Germany alone.