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Berlin (dpa) - The judges in Karlsruhe had forced the political process with their verdict, now the Chancellor has announced the result surprisingly quickly and personally.
According to the plans of the federal government, Germany should become climate neutral by 2045 - i.e. only emit as much greenhouse gas as can be bound again.
On the way there should be new intermediate goals, including a greenhouse gas reduction of 65 percent by the year 2030. To date, these emissions have fallen by 40 percent compared to 1990.
"We will do everything we can to achieve the goal of climate neutrality as early as 2045," said Merkel on Wednesday at an online congress of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group.
Additional measures would have to be taken and implemented for this.
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According to Merkel, the grand coalition also wants to become more ambitious when it comes to reducing emissions by 2030, for which the EU target of 55 percent compared to 1990 was the decisive factor so far.
"We will intensify our efforts again for 2030 and raise our reduction target to 65 percent," said the Chancellor.
At noon, Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (both SPD) appeared at short notice in front of the cameras to announce the key points of the planned change in the climate law.
It should be passed in the cabinet in the coming week.
The adjustment had become necessary because the Federal Constitutional Court had ordered the legislature last week with a groundbreaking ruling to regulate the reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions for the period after 2030 in more detail by the end of 2022.
The original plan was to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
Up until now, Germany had orientated itself towards the EU climate targets and had not set its own national target for climate neutrality.
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Another new feature is the federal government's intermediate goal of reducing emissions by 88 percent by 2040 in order to gradually reach 100 percent. One of the main points of criticism of the judges in Karlsruhe was that the climate protection path after 2030 had not been adequately regulated.
It remains to be seen how exactly the goals are to be achieved and what the new brands mean for individual areas such as transport or the energy sector.
Votings were still going on in parallel, it said.
Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) also pointed out in the afternoon that some questions were still open.
Above all about the instruments that are necessary to achieve the new goals, such as the details of CO2 pricing or the speed at which renewable energies are expanded.
The climate law itself initially only defines the reduction path and reduction targets for the individual sectors.
In addition to a higher CO2 price and the more ambitious expansion of wind and solar energy, the schedule for phasing out coal is also an important sticking point.
All of this has not yet been finally agreed in the federal government.
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CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt called the new climate targets “feasible and correct” and said: “This requires concrete agreements in the coalition on a more dynamic CO2 price and a jump in 2022 to 45 euros per tonne of CO2 combined with a faster expansion of photovoltaics.
The coalition still has to achieve results this week. "
Criticism of the plans was not long in coming.
The federal government has not shown how it wants to achieve the goals, complained about the German environmental aid.
Like Greenpeace, she also criticized the 65 percent target as inadequate.
The climate protection organizations insist on at least 70 percent fewer greenhouse gases by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2040.
There was also opposition from the political opposition. Green parliamentary leader Anton Hofreiter criticized the government's planned re-sharpening as inadequate. “Even the grand coalition on climate protection has to move under pressure from the Constitutional Court. That is a beginning, but nothing more, "said Hofreiter of the" Rheinische Post ". "The grand coalition lacks the strength to do what is sensible and necessary". The expansion of renewable energies must be accelerated enormously. "Here the grand coalition must finally break its self-blockade," appealed Hofreiter. He called on the federal government to phase out coal-fired power generation by 2030 and set a 70 percent target to reduce greenhouse gases by 2030 instead of the planned 65 percent. There was also criticism from the left.The climate politician Lorenz Gösta Beutin demanded that Germany should become climate neutral by 2035.
FDP leader Christian Lindner warned against a “German solo effort”.
Goals that were not coordinated with Europe would “only lead to the burden being distributed differently within Europe,” said Lindner on Wednesday in Berlin.
This would not save more tons of CO2 overall.
“Germany has also been very good at setting ambitious climate targets in the past.
We weren't good at achieving it, ”said the FDP boss.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210505-99-476645 / 7