Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said that immediate measures would be put in place to kick-start the execution of a landmark climate bill being discussed in the Cabinet on Wednesday.
The new bill set to be approved by the Cabinet will fix in law a target for Germany to become climate neutral by 2045, among other measures.
The updated legislation was effectively ordered by the Constitutional Court when it ruled at the end of April that the country’s climate protection laws were not extensive enough.
“We in the government are agreed that there will be an immediate programme” of measures to meet the new climate target, Schulze told broadcaster ARD on Wednesday.
One of the key criticisms of the new legislation has been that it contains few concrete actions to help meet the new targets.
Germany has so far managed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990 levels. The bill envisages a series of new benchmarks: a reduction of 65 per cent by 2030, 77 per cent by 2035, and 88 per cent by 2040.
The 2045 target is climate neutrality, when a country has net greenhouse emissions of zero.
The bill also limits emissions for six sectors of the economy, and would force them to reduce emissions at a faster pace than previously.
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