Despite this fall in coal reliance, the thinktank said, “most of the emissions cuts in 2023 are not sustainable from an industrial or climate policy perspective”.
Müller said: “The crisis-related slump in production weakens the German economy. If emissions are subsequently relocated abroad, then nothing has been achieved for the climate.”
That’s the part I don’t get… How could it have been higher while they had nuclear plants??
It seems like nuclear started being phased out in the early 2000s, and wind only started getting phased in, in like the 2000s and with a bit of solar getting phased in around 2010.
Fossil fuels seemed to take up more than half of their energy mix till like 2008 ish (?), and only really starting to drop off around 2016.
Although now I’m also kinda wondering what their total energy usage/ production was during that time now.
Graph showing GDP, energy consumption, and emissions since 1991
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Because nuclear renewables replaced a lot of nuclear power, Germany was a net electricity exporter, but that turned around, and electricity consumption is down a lot.
Nuclear is not the only way to provide clean energy.
Then other parts of the economy. Electricity makes up a quarter of Germanys emissions. Gas boilers, combustion engines and so forth all emit a lot, but they are not something, which can be replaced with a nuclear power plant. That takes other systems like heat pumps, electric cars and so forth. Since that makes up most of the emissions changes in those areas matter a lot more then the electricity system.