Saturday, September 4th 2021
Climate expert Jung optimistic
Laschet team: phase out coal before 2035
Germany wants to say goodbye to coal by 2038 at the latest. According to Andreas Jung, climate expert in the election campaign team of Union Chancellor candidate Laschet, this is much faster. Data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs prove him right with his assessment.
The climate expert in the election campaign team of Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, Andreas Jung, believes a faster coal exit is possible. “I expect that will be more clearly before 2035 than afterwards,” Jung told the news portal “ThePioneer”. It has so far been decided that Germany will phase out coal by 2038 at the latest.
European emissions trading is decisive for the speed of the phase-out. “It is from this that the costs of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants result.” Emissions trading is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. For every ton of CO2 that gets into the atmosphere, the polluters in the economic sectors covered by the system need an authorization. These certificates can be traded. Overall, the permitted amount of emissions is getting smaller and smaller, the certificates are becoming more expensive.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the coal phase-out is currently progressing faster than planned. This emerges from a paper from the ministry that was reported in mid-August. Accordingly, the Ministry of Economic Affairs considers an exit from coal-fired power generation possible before 2038. “Due to the good success of the tenders for hard coal and additional market-driven closures, the goal for 2022 of reducing hard coal plants and small-scale lignite plants to 15 gigawatts will probably even be exceeded,” says the paper.
The first lignite plant was shut down in 2020, with seven more to follow by the end of 2022. As the ministry announced on request, 22 more lignite units remained, which are to go offline between 2023 and 2038.
A year ago, the federal and state governments created the legal basis for the phase-out of lignite to succeed by 2038. In return, the coal regions are to receive 40 billion euros in order to be able to cope with the associated change. Another 1.09 billion euros will go to structurally weak locations of decommissioned hard coal power plants. The former lignite mining areas of Helmstedt and Altenburger Land also receive support of up to 90 million euros each.
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