Michael BastaschA recent report claims Germany is not on track to meet its goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020, despite the country spending billions on green energy subsidies.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces election on Sunday, and even though she’s expected to win, the inconvenient report from the group Agora Energiewende about her government’s global warming goals probably won’t do her any favors.
But don’t expect German Chancellor Angela Merkel to back down. In fact, she said a couple days ago her government would “find ways to get to the 2020 climate target,” which included the continued shut down of coal-fired power plants.
“I doubt that much will change in Germany in the short term,” Benny Peiser, director of the U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Despite the coast, “the vast majority of Germans remain overwhelmingly in favour of continuing the Energiewende,” Peiser said, referring to Germany’s energy transition plan.
The “Energiewende” is only one part of Germany’s plan to decarbonize its economy. Through Energiewende, Germany hopes to move away from fossil fuels, especially coal, towards solar and wind power.
Agora Energiewende reported the missed emissions target “won’t be a near miss but a booming failure,” in a recent report. Coal generated 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2016 while wind and solar supplied much less.
“The green energy fiasco, however, is not an election issue at all — not least because there is an all-party consensus on what may eventually turn out to be one of Angela Merkel’s most disastrous policy decisions,” Peiser said.
German began subsidizing green energy source in earnest in 2011 after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdown. Merkel began an aggressive shift towards solar and wind power to replace its nuclear plants.
But it’s cost them.
Germany has spent $780 billion in recent decades, Bloomberg reported, and it’s not enough to get them toward their national goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020.
“We expect Energiewende cost to fall starting from early 2020 – renewable power from newly build wind and solar is now the most cheapest power in Germany,” Christoph Podewils, Agora’s communications director, told TheDCNF.
“Of course we have lot of challenges – market design, regulation, grid expansion and enhancements, acceptance, de-carbonising of heating and transport – but cost is no issue anymore,” Christoph said.
However, average Germans are feeling the pain. Electricity costs are about three times higher than in the U.S., driven mostly by increases in energy taxes to pay for green energy. Heat is so expensive it’s called “the second rent.”
German industry, on the other hand, is expempt from green energy laws out of fear they would no longer be competitive. That’s shifted more of the cost onto residents and smaller businesses.
German emissions are down 27 percent from 1990 levels, which is ahead of other European countries, but still behind what they need to meet their goal.
Emissions have come down all while coal plants have thrive. Coal, especially lignite, is a cheap source of fuel in Germany that’s competitively subsidized green energy sources. Coal is also a more reliable energy source since it doesn’t rely on the sun and wind.
“Germany’s CO2 emissions in the electricity sector haven’t decreased since 1995,” Peiser said. “The country is almost certain to fail its climate targets by 2020 by a wide margin.”
“All that renewables have achieved is to replace zero-carbon nuclear and low-carbon gas power generation while coal power generation is increasingly competitive and thriving,” he said.
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
Why can’t the US learn from these idiots trying to change the weather. How stupid are we.
Let’s just say Germany will get a he’ll of a lot closer to any climate change target than the USA. Why should this be of interest to the sceptic community – has nothing to do with the idiots.
Ivan, USA actually reduced their CO2 emissions the last few years, Germany still rising.
Ok so you have just admitted that the Clean Power Act signed by Barack Obama was working. Well done mate, you are coming round to my perspective
Ivan, that is bloody dumb. Obama’s CPP was never actually put into place, and a bit of research would reveal that. Fracking resulting in cheap natural gas was the cause, and Obama and his green cronies tried to obstruct that.
CPP and green energy Tom. And the Donald wants to roll this back, threatening cleaner air for all Americans and the burgeoning US jobs growth in renewable technologies. Shame on him.
Trump avoided going down the failing path of South Australia and Germany on “renewable energy”. Apart from the prices in Germany of about 3X US, one has the South Australia problem of wind and solar being unreliable.
Continuing on a failed path indicates a zealot, who does not care about either price, and therefore the economy as a whole, or reliability, ditto. The push for renewables has other motivations than economic ones, and I retain enough of my leftist past to believe that is a major consideration. There is an element of nihilism in the green movement that hates modern industrial society, and wants it to fail. Perhaps you are listening to those people, and failing to recognize their motive.
Nope, not really. I am also pro nucleur that many in the green movement bitterly oppose, but am also strongly against tracking which has been rejected in Europe over health concerns of the injected chemicals entering the water table and creating long-term health problems.
Ivan, the Obama era EPA did several studies on the health effects of fracking, and found none. The Obama administration was not friendly to the oil and gas industry, so if there was anything there, they would have been motivated to find it.
Part of the opposition to fracking is financed by Putin and Gazprom, the rest by ordinary greens reflexively opposed to most industry. “Gasland”, a mostly fictional “documentary” is typical of that genre.
I took a quick look at tracking’s health effects. In my opinion the US is in for long-term health problems from tracking and these will start to appear more in the next few decades. The studies referred to here seem to contradict your statement – and I wouldn’t dismiss this issue as just a green leftie thing:
https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/amp/
Ivan, the EPA’s studies did not shut up the activists. Citing DeSmogBlog? Nearly Alex Jones territory. I noted she sort of admitted there was no real risk from fracking, but got into “harm” from diesel engines used on drilling rigs and the sort.
Those who want to spread panic will not respond to reality.
Well mainstream US seems to be comfortable with fracking; in the EU it hasn’t taken off mainly due to health and environmental concerns – and I don’t think it ever will. The ecomomic benefits are very clear and the downside risks less clear … fot the time being.
In Europe, opposition is due to a combination of Putin’s puppies and the green blob being their usual hysteric selves. In the US, opposition to fracking is mostly dominant in New York, where the governor, Cuomo, is sucking up to green donors in New York City mostly.
You don’t get it my friend but you grandchildren will when they are your age – will be a very different planet. Sceptics will be consigned to the dustbin of history, renewable technologies will have overtaken fossil fuels and people will look back on fracking as an ecological disaster.
The greens have been making predictions I have followed since about 1968. They have a track record about as good as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Marxists. Entertaining, though.
One little fact that those who like to trumpet the success that Germany has had in reducing its GHG emissions relative to its 1990 levels never like to mention is that most of that reduction took place in the years immediately following reunification, during which time inefficient Soviet-era pollution belching heavy industry in former East Germany was shut down. It has virtually nothing to do with all the heavily subsidized windmills and solar panels Germany has been deploying since the 2000 passage of the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (Renewable Energies Law).
For 800 billion dollars, Germany has accomplished next to nothing with regard to GHG emissions reduction. Had that money instead been spent on nuclear power, even if the nuclear power plants they purchased were individually as expensive as the most expensive ones ever built, they could have completely decarbonized their electric power sector by now, and possibly even begun work on using nuclear power to drive production of carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/30/climate-communism-the-russians-arent-buying/comment-page-1/#comment-2597090
[excerpt w/ minor edits)
We have known for decades that global warming alarmism is a false crisis, because the scientific evidence shows that the sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 is very low. The Russian scientists are in general agreement with this position, as are the competent scientists in the Western world.
That is the science – now to the politics:
Is the Russian government encouraging and financing the global warming alarmist movement? There is significant evidence that it is doing so.
Let’s consider why the Russian government would encourage the global warming alarmists:
Russian in economically dependent on oil and gas exports to the west, especially to Western Europe. Low energy prices, recently driven by technological improvements in the fracking of gassy and oily shales, have severely harmed the Russian economy.
Two of the main pipelines supplying Europe from Russia are called “Druzhba” or “Friendship” (oil) and “Brotherhood” (natural gas). More Russian pipelines to supply Europe are underway.
Global warming alarmists, anti-fracking groups and anti-pipeline groups have all been active in Europe and North America, trying to sabotage energy developments in the Western democracies. They do so because cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society, and by driving up the cost of energy and reducing its availability and reliability they are attempting to cripple the economies of the western democracies. This is the front line of the “New Cold War”.
This reality is not new. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, described the takeover of environmental organizations by Marxists (aka “useful idiots”) in an essay entitled “The Rise of Eco-Extremism” (1994) http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
Below are references that show the covert funding of green extremist groups by foreign sources, including the Russian Federation. They are of course aided by the usual gang of “useful idiots”, but we should not rule out the possibility that some of them too are being funded by foreign interests.
Regards, Allan
References:
Here are just two articles about foreign funding of phony environmental groups by the Russians and others.
http://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredit-natural-gas-fracking-635052
http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/vivian-krause-the-cash-pipeline-opposing-canadian-oil-pipelines
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/31/opecs-existential-sucker-punch/comment-page-1/#comment-2568116
[excerpt]
The problem is that so many voters are fools who accept the blatant lies of the left, and then they pay the price. In Venezuela they are far down this dark road.
In Canada, we have elected leftist “energy imbeciles” in Ottawa, Ontario and Alberta Ontario is already paying the price, and the rest of the country is likely to follow.
Canadian heavy crude belongs in the Texas refineries and this should happen as soon as the pipeline nonsense is fixed – we can thank the watermelons for the long, costly delay in this much-needed pipeline.
Strategically, the USA is much better off with Canadian heavy crude.
Comparatively, there are no major environmental issues with pipelines, and the railway alternative has much greater environmental and safety risks – not just oil spills – witness the Lac Mégantic rail disaster, where 47 people were incinerated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster
Haven’t read such a pile of BS in a very long time. Who paid you to write such tripe? Americans like you should focus more on what Putin is doing to your country; Europe is perfectly capable of protecting itself when it comes to V. Putin and his cronies.
“Haven’t read such a pile of BS in a very long time.”
Don’t you bother reading your own posts then?
I assure you, as piles of BS they comfortably surpass anything else on this or any other WUWT blog.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And a lot more to come …
“And a lot more to come”
Oh, for certain.
But you and your fellow bedwetter Watermelons are not going to like when it does.
Catweazle you are part of a dying breed. Sceptics have been discredited and the world is fortunately moving on towards a low carbon environment. Crawl back into your hole and pull the blanket over your head.