{"id":442536,"date":"2026-01-07T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/01\/07\/germania-si-ferma-il-processo-di-transizione-verde-nel-2025-solo-15-per-cento-di-emissioni-in-meno\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:13:07","slug":"germanys-green-transition-process-stalls-emissions-fall-just-1-5-percent-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/01\/07\/germanys-green-transition-process-stalls-emissions-fall-just-1-5-percent-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s green transition process stalls; emissions fall just 1.5 percent in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The first (green) assessment of Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/strong> is negative. The German think tank Agora Energiewende<\/a> denounced the slower-than-expected pace of Germany’s green transition<\/strong>. In Europe’s largest economy, greenhouse gas emissions decreased just 1.5 percent<\/strong> compared to 2024. The decrease was less pronounced than in 2024, when they were reduced by 3 percent<\/strong> compared to the previous year, and less than in 2023, when they were down an 10 percent annually.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This underwhelming progress is attributed less to advances in renewable energies and more to Germany’s recent production downturn. <\/strong>The figures released today, 7 January, also cast doubt on the Federal Republic’s long-term goal of<\/strong> reducing its emissions by 65 percent compared to 1990<\/strong> levels by 2030. As of today, the process is stuck at 49 percent, and it will be difficult to reach if the trend stays at fractions of a percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Merz’s backtracking<\/h3>\n

The news comes as no surprise. The Merz government<\/strong> has promoted a series of policies, both at home and in Europe, that could undermine the fight against climate change<\/strong>. The chancellor justifies these decisions as necessary to reduce the energy burden of German companies and households. Germany’s greenest faction points the finger primarily at Economics Minister, Katherina Reiche.<\/strong> The politician has a long career in the energy sector and, since the beginning of her term of office, has promoted the construction of new gas power plants<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Her decisions, admittedly, have not yet affected 2025 emissions, but things could be even worse in 2026<\/strong>. This year will see tenders for new gas\u2011fired power plants <\/a>with a combined capacity of eight gigawatts<\/strong> (8 GW), well below the 20\u202fGW Reiche wanted.<\/p>\n

The good news <\/h3>\n

In a sub-optimal scenario, there are nevertheless positive signs<\/strong>. The Germans, who can partly serve as an example for the rest of Europe, bought more heat pumps<\/strong> than in the previous year (now outnumbering gas boilers) and more electric cars<\/strong> (which now account for one\u2011fifth of new registrations). Agora Energiewende’s director, Julia Bl\u00e4sius<\/strong>, sees this increase as an opportunity to be seized: “The federal government should leverage this tailwind<\/strong>: by strengthening domestic demand \u2013 and with it also industry \u2013 Germany can catch up in climate-neutral technologies.”<\/p>\n

On the topic of renewables, zero-impact energy production increased by 1 percent compared to 2024<\/strong>. The increase could have been higher, but the scarcity of wind penalised offshore power plants. On the other hand, the balance of solar energy<\/strong> was positive: for the first time, production surpassed that of coal, lignite, or gas power plants, becoming the second most important source<\/strong> of energy in the country after wind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compared to 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by 49 percent. However, the goal of a 65\u2011percent reduction by 2030 now looks hard to reach with cuts of this magnitude<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7891,"featured_media":233717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25706],"tags":[26267,27843,26823,25785],"class_list":["post-442536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-economy-en","tag-co2-in-2","tag-transition-green-en","tag-energy-renewable-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442537,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442536\/revisions\/442537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}