Tuesday, November 9th, 2021
British initiative
Germany ends oil investments abroad
Tangible results at the climate summit in Glasgow are rare. However, Germany is belatedly joining the circle of countries that are putting investments in fossil fuel infrastructure abroad on hold. The reason, however, is symptomatic: exceptions are expressly allowed.
Germany is joining an initiative to phase out the financing of fossil fuels abroad by the end of 2022. This was announced by Environment State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26). Last Thursday, the governments of the United States and around 20 other countries announced that they would withdraw from financing coal, oil and natural gas projects abroad by the end of next year.
Flasbarth explained that it had taken Germany a few days longer to join the initiative of the British COP presidency, as some details had yet to be clarified. Accession was now possible because Germany had received confirmation that investments in gas infrastructure were still possible in individual cases.
According to Flasbarth, this makes sense as a bridge when getting out of coal and moving into renewable energies. Natural gas is also needed for the production of green hydrogen. “That must of course be directed towards the future,” said Flasbarth about the possible investments. In addition, these are only necessary for a transitional period of “a few years”. The State Secretary for the Environment also emphasized that in the case of Germany, the financing of coal projects abroad had “long been a thing of the past”.
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The British COP Presidency’s envoy, John Murton, said he was “pleased” about Germany’s accession. “Why should we use government money overseas to make a problem worse while we try to do better at home?” He argued in favor of phasing out foreign investment in fossil fuels.
Germany moves up in the climate protection index
In the meantime, Germany once again made progress in its climate protection efforts in an international comparison. According to the climate protection index published by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute at the UN climate conference, it moved up six places to 13th place. The Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden and Norway performed best. However, the first three places remained vacant due to inadequate measures. The climate protection index takes a close look at the 60 countries with the highest emissions in the world. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan are at the bottom of this year’s ranking.
According to the study, Germany has improved primarily because of falling greenhouse gas emissions and its more stringent climate targets for 2030 and 2045. The problem, however, is “the recent massive stagnation in the expansion of renewable energies,” according to the study. The national climate policy is also rated as “weak” because the federal government has not sufficiently explained how it intends to achieve its more stringent climate targets.
Specifically, the authors of the study in Germany are calling for the phase-out of coal to be brought forward by 2030 and for the end of subsidies for all fossil fuels. Legal obstacles to renewable energies, especially wind turbines, should also be removed. Jan Burck from Germanwatch sees this as the “acid test” for the next federal government.