Germany in 2050 : a greenhouse gas-neutral country
authors: Rosemarie Benndorf, Maja Bernicke, Andreas Bertram, Wolfgang Butz, Folke Dettling, Johannes Drotleff, Cornelia Elsner, Eric Fee, Christopher Gabler, Christine Galander, Yvonne Hargita, Reinhard Herbener, Tim Hermann, Fabian Jäger, Judith Kanthak, Hermann Kessler, Yvonne Koch, David Kuntze, Martin Lambrecht, Christian Lehmann, Harry Lehmann, Sandra Leuthold, Benjamin Lünenbürger, Insa Lütkehus, Kerstin Martens, Felix Müller, Klaus Müschen, Diana Nissler, Sebastian Plickert, Katja Purr, Almut Reichart, Jens Reichel, Hanno Salecker, Sven Schneider, Jens Schuberth, Dietrich Schulz, Marlene Sieck, Ulla Strenge, Bärbel Westermann, Kathrin Werner, Christine Winde, Dietmar Wunderlich, Brigitte Zietlow ; edited by: Section I 2.2 Energy Strategies and Scenarios: Katja Purr, Ulla Strenge, Manuela Will, Guido Knoche, Annette Volkens ; publisher: Umweltbundesamt ; study performed by: Umweltbundesamt
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has for several years been researching appropriate, effective ways of implementing the targets set by the international community on stemming climate change in a highly industrialised and developed nation like Germany. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show beyond doubt that industrial nations in particular will need to work towards ambitious climate targets by the middle of this century if they are to fulfil their global responsibility. This provides an opportunity for Germany to take on a trailblazing role, setting the bar high and working towards the ‘greenhouse gas-neutral country’ climate target. The UBA has launched an interdisciplinary process in order to discover how a greenhouse gas-neutral Germany might look in 2050. The process began with an investigation of electricity generation, be-cause this involves high emissions; the UBA showed that it is in fact possible to generate 100% of our electricity from renewable sources. From the outset, it was clear that a sustainable supply of energy from renewables would not on its own be sufficient to avoid almost all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Other sectors of the economy would also need to make major changes and increase their use of low-GHG technologies.The present study, ‘Greenhouse gas-neutral Germany 2050’ therefore investigates all the relevant sources of emissions that are described in the German National Inventory Report (NIR) on greenhouse gases. Thus besides energy supply — including the heat and transport sectors — we also consider greenhouse gas emissions from industry, waste management, agriculture and forestry and changes in land use. We then present a target scenario. Our study does not cover the routes towards this trans-formation, any associated economic assessments, or the selection of suitable policy instruments. Instead, we aim to demonstrate that a greenhouse gas-neutral Germany can largely be achieved using technical measures. We hope to provoke discussion about our sustainable, greenhouse gas-neutral future. Further study will be required, for example into the extent to which lifestyle changes can help make our greenhouse gas-neutral target easier to achieve.
