Germany sets out plan to abandon fossil fuels by 2045

Germany on Wednesday unveiled a roadmap for abandoning fossil fuels by 2045, making Europe’s largest economy only the third country to have done so after France and the Netherlands.

Though almost 200 countries pledged at COP28 climate negotiations in 2023 to wean off fossil fuels, few have presented concrete plans, Germany’s environment ministry said.

Germany’s measures include building up renewable power, greater reliance on electric cars and the application of EU carbon trading schemes to drive industrial polluters away from fossil fuels, the ministry statement added.

German environment minister Carsten Schneider told the UN General Assembly that the Middle East war showed why fossil fuels should be dumped.

“It is not just extreme weather events around the world that demonstrate how urgently we need to do more to protect the climate,” he said.

“If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz determines whether people can still afford their daily commute to work, that is not a good state of affairs,” he added.

Fentje Jacobsen, a climate policy advisor at the WWF, said the roadmap largely restated existing iniatives without adding “new ideas or additional ambitions”.

“The current government is meanwhile planning to rely less on renewables and more on gas,” she added.

Energy minister Katherina Reiche favours building new gas-fired power plants to help stabilise the electricity grid and help offset the intermittency of renewable sources like wind and solar.