Germany

Historical emissions are taken from the Federal Environment Agency published in March 2024 (UBA, 2024b). 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 2024”) published by the kba Agency (UBA) in March 2024, which includes all measures that were agreed by October 2023 (UBA, 2024c). 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 in their most recent publication the scenario “With implemented measures” . For some sectors, we make corrections to the numbers to reflect most recent policy developments:

• Power: The UBA projection assumes that the targeted RE capacity additions set early 2022 will be achieved. For solar, this has been the case, but only about a quarter of the targeted wind capacity for 2023 and 2024 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 107 GW of wind by 2030, as opposed to 145 GW as targeted. The difference in emissions is about 12 MtCO2 in 2030.
• Transport: The projection report assumes that passenger EV sales will continue to increase every year until 2035: in 2024, registrations of new passenger EVs are projected to increase by 37.7% relative to 2023 and amount to over 720,000 new EVs (KBA, 2023; UBA, 2024a). However, since the publication of the projection report, the German government eliminated its purchase incentives for passenger EVs at the end of 2023. In the first four months of 2024, passenger EV registrations were weaker than expected: only approximately 106,000 passenger EVs have been registered (KBA, 2024b, 2024c, 2024d, 2024a). To consider the lower-than-expected growth in EV registrations, we delay the share of passenger car emissions reduction by one year. Passenger cars accounted for approximately 60% (59.71%) of total road transport emissions between 2018 and 2022 (Eurostat, 2024) Therefore, 60% of sectoral emissions reduction is delayed by one year.
• Buildings, 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 excluding 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.