Man-made climate change is a global challenge. The core task is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offset unavoidable emissions. Timely, sustainable infrastructure investments are key to climate action success. The focus is on reducing energy demand and a complete switch of the electricity and heat supply to renewable energies, taking into account interplay with other environmental challenges. The German Environment Agency supports this process with strategies, scenarios, measures and instruments as well as monitoring activities. It also implements individual instruments, such as emissions trading, guarantees of origin for green electricity or the Blue Angel ecolabel.
UBA and AWI demand more climate action and protection of the oceans and the mitigation of risks for coastal regions.
In the first half of 2019 electricity produced from renewable energies made notable gains over the same period in the previous year. During the first six months of the year production was around 129 billion kilowatt hours, about 10 percent more than the same period in 2018 (+ 12 billion kWh). But the rate of new build of wind energy turbines has slowed in 2019.
The 2018 emissions of the roughly 1,870 stationary installations in Germany recorded in the European Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) amounted to around 422 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq). This is a 3.5-percent decrease compared to the previous year. The decline in emissions is chiefly due to lower emissions in the energy industry.
Lesser use of fossile energy and favourable weather conditions helped with the decline.
Developments in 2018 in the renewable energy sector reflect a rather mixed picture: in the electricity market renewable energies covered nearly 38 per cent of overall gross final electricity consumption, due mainly to the year’s unusually sunny weather. In the heating sector, the share of renewables rose only slightly, virtually unchanged compared to previous years at just under 14 per cent.
Guidance for planners and operators of refrigeration equipment
The Paris Agreement set the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. To achieve this, it is essential to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions towards zero. Additional measures are needed to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as reforestation. However, UBA advises against betting on untried, risky technologies.
According to the IPCC, global warming must be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to mitigate the risks. An UBA position paper outlines how the EU climate policy could be aligned with this goal. Already by 2020, the parties to the Paris Agreement are to submit their updated national climate contribution to limit global warming. Up to now, far less has been promised than would be necessary.
Why is there a trade in or with emissions? Who specifies the framework conditions and how does emissions trading actually work? An explanatory film gives short and concise answers to these questions and explains the contribution of emissions trading to climate protection.
The Commission for Sustainable Building (KNBau) at the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has issued a plea to the federal government, the Länder governments and local authorities to establish greener standards in the campaign to create new housing.
Starting 1 January 2019 every household has the opportunity to drive the transformation of the energy system. The new guarantees of regional origin register makes it possible to issue guarantees of origin for electricity produced from renewable sources of energy. End customers will be able to verify that their electricity is produced in their region, for example by the nearby wind turbine.
The German Federal Government compensates for the climate gas emissions of its official trips. To do so the German Environment Agency (UBA) acquired and cancelled emissions credits worth roughly 300,000 tonnes of CO2 for official travel in 2017.
