climate policy – Energy Watch Group

1.5 ^oC global warming have been passed – and 2.0 ^oC are in sight
In 2023 global warming was 1.5 °C. In 2024 that rose to 1.6 °C – without being an „El Niño“ year. And global CO ₂ emissions increased in 2024 instead of decreasing. In other words, the Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C has not been met. It is „high noon“ for staying below the 2.0 °C threshold.

Turbocharging 100% Renewables – Measures and practicality
In order to stay below 2.0 °C, the transition to 100% renewable energy needs to be turbocharged with the measures shown below. While that may sound like wishful thinking in the current political environment – the examples in italics show: it is within reach.

Complete stop of investment in fossil fuel drilling, distribution and use. In 2024, global investment in renewable energy was 2 trillion USD, and only 1 trillion USD in fossil energy. In other words, we are already 2/3 of the way there.
Make investment in renewable energy even more profitable and easy – and increase capacity decisively. Since 2000, CO₂ emissions have fallen by 30% in the EU und 20% in the USA. If we increase the rate of growth in wind and PV, achieved in 2023 vs. 2022, by only 50%, there will be enough renewable energy in 12 years to meet the world’s primary energy demand with transition to electric vehicles and heat pump heating. Also, current global PV manufacturing capacity is almost 3-times the current capacity growth: the production capacity for a decisive rapid ramp-up is there.

For broad and sustained political and social support for that course of action, the transformation needs to be:

profitable and easy for many. That creates broad support and mobilizes the required, substantial amounts of private capital for the transition. Where necessary, subsidies and other governments payments provide additional protection from net income losses in the transition for the nations’ lower income groups. The new “Roadmap CO₂-neutral Germany” of the EWG shows: even in Germany, that has limited solar radiation and only moderate wind resources, 100% renewable energy is achievable by 2035 – profitably for citizens and businesses, without disadvantages for low income households and without increasing public debt. In addition, GNP increases by 100 bn USD per year or 2.5%. We are certain, the similar attractive and fact-based pathways to 100% renewable energy can be developed and implemented for most G20 countries.
accompanied with mandates for continuous transition to renewable energy and technologies. The EU and UK have mandated no few fossil fuel vehicles by 2035. In Germany, fossil fuel heating above a given age needs to be exchanged with renewable heating.
in cooperation with China, both the main CO₂ emitter by far and a leader in clean tech know-how and production capacity. On the other hand, the G20 need to maintain and aggressively grow their own clean tech industrial base for resilience and acceleration of renewable capacity growth. The IRA in the United State and the recent decisions of the EU to aim for 40% and more EU content in clean tech procurement show ways to expand domestic clean tech production capacities. The nuclear disarmament initiated in the 1990s goes to show that even global rivals can cooperate to achieve common goals.

Even if we do not contain global warming at or below 2.0 °C: every avoided ton of CO₂ emission, each 0.1 °C of global warming that is avoided reduces human suffering and economic cost, strengthens social cohesion and national security.

In 2025, the Energy Watch Group will contribute to disseminating and forming these measures internationally and in Germany.

How can the climate movement contribute?
The slow progress at the COP and other international climate conferences, the lower political-media relevance of reaching net zero vs. immediate economic objectives in the EU and Trump’s presidency have clearly disillusioned the climate movement. Now, it is upon the climate movement and its NGOs to

also address the value of climate action for economic and other self-interests – and show that the supposed conflict of climate vs. economics is often not based in fact. Where there is a conflict, it should be acknowledged – and solved if possible.
Engage with voters, journalists and decision makers outside of the “climate bubble”. Also having economic and other self-interest reasons for climate action will help convincing members of these groups.

In 2025, the Energy Watch Group will support the climate movement in doing that.

Cooling the earth back down by 1.0 ^oC
To cool the earth back down by 1.0 °C, today’s 425 ppm CO₂-concentration in the atmosphere needs to be lowered to at least 350 ppm. That means removing at least 600 billion (giga-tons) of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The main currently available means for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere are:

using technology via Direct Air Capture and Storage (DACS)
land based photosynthesis, e.g. reactivating marshland, increasing humus content in agricultural soils, reforestation inland or in coastal mangrove swamps and increasing plant ground cover in arid areas.
Maritime photosynthesis, mainly cultivating and harvesting macro algae.

In 2025, the Energy Watch Group will research these options in more depth.

Photocredit: Christel at Pixabay.

Germany – Update Power Plant Strategy, risks in financing renewables’ growth

In February, the federal government presented its “Power Plant Strategy”: the construction of 4×25 GW fossil gas-fired power plants, which were to be converted to green hydrogen only in the second half of the 2030s, so as to combine volatile wind and PV power generation with flexible power generation as needed for reliable power supply.

Other flexible power sources or a direct transition to green hydrogen power plants were excluded without further justification. And alternatives are available: a simple retrofitting of existing biogas plants from base load to peak load will achieve

30(!) GW of CO₂-free flexible power generation – faster than fossil gas-fired power plants
6 billion € lower life-cycle costs for each GW of capacity than peak fossil gas power plants converted to green hydrogen foreseen in the “power plant strategy”
keeping the 10% of today’s German electricity generation currently provided by biogas remain CO₂-free (they would otherwise be retired in the coming years).

With others, including the Council of German States (Bundesrat), the German Renewable Energy Association (BEE), the Energy Watch Group advocated using biogas power plants for peak load and including them in Germany’s power plant strategy. This included

publishing a short study on the power plant strategy.
hosting of the “Green Power Plant Summit” at the Brandenburg Gate with the energy and climate parliamentary speakers of SPD, CDU, and Die Linke and an energy policy specialist of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen.

“Renewable energy has priority! No fossil fuel power plant that could already be replaced by renewables is legitimate. But replacement must also be feasible.” – Nina Scheer, SPD

“Simply retrofitting the already existing biogas power plants from base load to peak load creates over 10 GW of flexible capacity. That is more cost-effective than the government’s plan for new gas-fired power plants.” – Thomas Heilman, CDU

Support of discussions with Minister Habeck and his team on the issues with analysis and argumentation.

Until summer, the BMWK (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action) continued to exclude peak load biogas power plants from its power plant strategy. Then in August, Minister Habeck declared the conversion of biogas power plants to peak load a key element of future power generation!

This is an important step towards building the flexible electricity generating capacity necessary to match the ramp-up of wind and PV power. The next decisive steps are the implementation in legislation and peak power plant tenders.

Global news – an elephant in the room and encouraging trends

In 2023, global warming reached the 1.5°C threshold. 2024 is well on track to be even warmer. Even without detailed weather modeling it is safe to say, that 1.5°C warming is here to stay – and will be exceeded with further CO₂-emissions. UN Secretary-General Guterres clearly describes the current climate outlook as a “path to climate hell”, if decisive action is not taken immediately.

In other words,

the world’s remaining CO₂-budget is zero
the obvious minimum consequence in keeping with the Paris Agreement is an immediate worldwide stop to any further investment in fossil fuel production and consumption: no new or expanded fossil powered electricity generation, heating and cooling systems, transport or industrial processes.
current national plans – designed to meet the stipulations of the Paris Agreement – with a gradual reduction of CO₂-emissions until 2040, 2045 or 2050 are mute. We need zero emissions plus carbon sinks.

So far, these facts have largely been treated as the “elephant in the room”: they have hardly been addressed in national climate policy debates, much less led to action, for fear of the political and economic “costs” an acknowledgement would have.

These “costs” would be greatly mitigated, if a majority of developed and threshold countries act on them simultaneously. We wish the government representatives in the upcoming G7, G20 and COP summits the courage to take that kind of step together.

There have been multilateral steps in that direction but not whole-hearted action: at the COP26 in Glasgow 2021, 40 countries pledged to “shift away” from coal – but not to “stop” investment in coal and the major coal users such as China and the USA did not sign up. Also at that COP, 21 countries including the USA, pledged to stop public financing of fossil fuel projects abroad – but neither private nor domestic financing of fossil fuel projects.

Encouraging trends in this situation are that – other than 5 or 10 years ago,

we see that national and regional climate policies do work: CO₂-emissions in the EU have steadily been coming down since 2002, in the USA since 2007 and China’s CO₂-emissions are expected to peak in 2024 – well before the Chinese government’s official 2030 target. The main remaining challenge is to accelerate climate action.
The global production capacity for PV, batteries, BEV and other clean technology getting to rapidly replace fossil fuels is in place at competitive cost. The main remaining challenge is how to quickly deploy these worldwide without incurring the political and economic costs of Chinese market domination.

Stopping all further investment in fossil fuel assets is a very effective move to make in terms of physical impact und changing mindsets. Doing this jointly with other nations greatly reduces the associated economic and political costs. That is the message EWG is conveying to policy makers as they are returning from their summer (or winter) break.

Bild von StockSnap auf Pixabay

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