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Berlin (dpa) - Germany has slightly exceeded its climate protection target for 2020 - also as a result of the pandemic.
This emerges from the emission data that the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) presented for the first time on Tuesday on the basis of the Climate Protection Act of 2019.
According to this, Germany emitted almost 739 million tons of greenhouse gases last year - around 70 million tons less than in 2019 (minus 8.7 percent).
Compared to 1990 emissions fell by 40.8 percent.
The goal was an overall decrease of 40 percent.
According to UBA information, this is the largest annual decline since the year of German unification.
The Federal Environment Agency assumes that a good third of the reductions are due to the consequences of the corona pandemic.
“We can see that climate policy instruments are beginning to take effect, in particular the expansion of renewable energies and CO2 pricing.
But without the corona lockdowns with the restrictions on production and mobility, Germany would have missed its climate target for 2020, ”said UBA boss Dirk Messner on Tuesday.
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Accordingly, there were reductions in emissions in all economic sectors examined, including transport.
The building sector, with a good 120 million tons of emissions in 2020, was the only area that missed the sector target by two million tons.
The energy industry performed best, according to the report.
The sector emitted around 221 million tons of CO2 equivalents in 2020 - the unit in which the greenhouse gases are specified for better comparability.
280 million tons would have been allowed.
This is followed by traffic with emissions of 146 million tons and a reduction of 19 million tons.
The industry reduced its greenhouse gases by nine million tons to around 178 million.
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Agriculture also met the sector target and reduced emissions by a good 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gases to 66 million.
With a reduction of around 3.8 percent compared to the previous year, the waste industry barely made it.
It came to nine million tons in 2020 - as many as would just have been allowed under the Climate Protection Act.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210316-99-841603 / 2