Germany

Historical emissions are taken from the Federal Environment Agency published in April 2023 (UBA, 2023b). UBA provides the data using Global Warming Potentials from AR5, we convert the data using Global Warming Potentials from AR4 (see more detail below).

Note there is an unexplained jump from -18 to -80 MtCO₂ in sinks from forests in the inventory data from 1990 to 1991.

The current policy projections are adapted from the projections report (“Projektionsbericht 2023”) published by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) in August 2023, which includes all measures that were agreed by September 2022 (Federal Environment Agency, 2023). The base year value of 2019 from the projections varies slightly from the latest historical inventory data from 2023, and we harmonise the projections to the inventory by assuming that the relative difference in 2019 for each sector is constant in the future for the projections.

UBA provides two scenarios: “With implemented measures” and “with implemented and additional measures”. For some sectors, we make corrections to the numbers to reflect most recent policy developments:

• Power: The projections report assumes that the targeted RE capacity additions set early 2022 will be achieved. For solar, this has been the case, but only about half of the targeted wind capacity for 2022 and 2023 has been installed so far. We thus provide a range for this sector and for the upper end of emissions projections for energy supply assume that only half of the additions of wind will be achieved by 2030 and beyond. This assumption would lead to about 105 GW of wind by 2030, as opposed to 145 GW as targeted. The difference in emissions is about 20 MtCO₂ in 2030.
• Buildings: The projections report calculate a substantial impact of the law on federal support for efficient buildings and the buildings energy law. The political process has developed since the cut-off date for policies in the projections report and the current status is not directly comparable with the assumptions made in the modelling (Expertenrat für Klimafragen, 2023a). The projections report provides estimates of the impact of individual measures in isolation, compared to a counterfactual scenario. We use the reduction value for the most impactful policy instrument (the federal subsidy support) to reflect the high uncertainty in implementation. Our optimistic end of the range includes this measure, the pessimistic one does not. We do not deduct all measures because the values are modelled in isolation, i.e. deducting all would not consider their overlap and be overly pessimistic.
• Transport: Use scenario with additional measures, as the measures that were planned have been implemented in the meantime
• Industry, agriculture and waste: no adjustments, using scenario with implemented measures.

According to Germany’s Climate Law, the 2045 climate neutrality target includes a sink of 40 MtCO₂e to compensate for some remaining emissions sources. We thus estimate the total GHG emissions excl. LULUCF in 2045 at 40 MtCO₂e.

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).