“Green” Germany’s Emissions Keep Rising
By Paul Homewood
From The American Interest:
Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions rose last year, according to a new report. CO2 levels rose by 4 million tons in 2016 (0.7 percent), which means Berlin will have to reduce those levels by 40 million tons over the next three years in order to meet the country’s 2020 climate targets. As the FT reports, the country’s opposition Green party (who sponsored the study) is blaming an increase in vehicle miles traveled for the emissions increase:
A key reason for the increase was rising emissions in the transport sector, the Greens said. That was backed up by figures from the Federal Environment Agency, which showed carbon dioxide emissions from transport rose by 5.4m tonnes, or 3.4 per cent in 2016 — partly due to an increase in freight traffic, which expanded by 2.8 per cent. […]
The Greens also blamed a pick-up in oil consumption, driven by an expanding economy: German gross domestic product rose 1.9 per cent last year, its fastest pace in five years. They said higher consumption of diesel was also a factor.
Imagine that, Greens inveighing against economic progress. If you need a reminder of how politically toxic and counterproductive environmental dogma can be, look no further than this example.
Of course, there’s another culprit for rising German emissions apart from an expanding economy, and it’s one we’re also not surprised to see the Green Party skip over. Germany’s energiewende has propped up renewables at extraordinary cost to consumers, but it has also shuttered the country’s nuclear reactors. That decision, made largely in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster, doomed a fleet of zero-emissions baseload power suppliers. And, because solar panels and wind turbines can only supply power when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, those binned reactors had to be replaced by fossil fuels.
And not just any fossil fuels: Germany has been ratcheting up its consumption of domestically produced lignite, a particularly dirty variety of coal. That’s how Berlin managed to simultaneously raise its power prices while also raise its greenhouse gas emissions in the process. It’s hard to argue that Germany is any better off for having implemented the energiewende.
Germany’s director general of energy policy recently told the BBC that Berlin plans to use its impending G20 presidency to push for a carbon tax. The way things are going, that seems almost masochistic.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/03/17/green-germanys-emissions-keep-rising/
How dare Germany expand their economy!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
This is now what complete policy failure looks like.
Will their emissions reduce as their industry heads elsewhere due to energy costs? Or is the increase in the amount of freight traffic all those trucks bringing the goods in that used to be made in Germany? The people need the power back, the question is how.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“Germany’s energiewende has propped up renewables at extraordinary cost to consumers, but it has also shuttered the country’s nuclear reactors. That decision, made largely in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster, doomed a fleet of zero-emissions baseload [nuclear] power suppliers. And, because solar panels and wind turbines can only supply power when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, those binned reactors had to be replaced by fossil fuels.
And not just any fossil fuels: Germany has been ratcheting up its consumption of domestically produced lignite, a particularly dirty variety of coal.
“It’s hard to argue that Germany is any better off for having implemented the energiewende.”
Ironically, Greenpeace legislators within the German parliament killed German nukes off based on Fukushima hysteria, thus forcing the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants in Germany’s history !
Greens – Killing the Earth to “save it”.
“Ironically, Greenpeace legislators within the German parliament killed German nukes off based on Fukushima hysteria, thus forcing the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants in Germany’s history ! ”
All of which goes to show that the real concern is not CO2… that’s just a wedge and a pretext… Greens will gladly accept more CO2 as long as it is a tool for destroying nuclear energy
Correct. And a tool for destroying capitalism, wealth and culling population.
Control Energy (CO2) and you control everything and everybody.
The Left are all about power, ergo control.
Yes Climatism… “Capitalism” is a pretty slippery term these days since rent-seeking privately owned multinationals are vehicles for globalized, socialized mega- government…
But yeah the radical enviros are best described as Green Malthusians whose ultimate goal is a New Dark Ages feudal order driven by massive depopulation and de-industrialization … Climate Change and CO2 are the tools for waging that war.
The BBC/Sadiq “Diesels are Paedos” campaign
I expect some of UK air pollution is coming from continental wood fires and German lignite power stations.
Would that be true ?
“I expect some of UK air pollution is coming from continental wood fires and German lignite power stations.
Would that be true ?”
Hi stew,
no, in general the Uks prevailing winds are from the South West, so they get our crap;
occasionally with low pressure over us & high pressure over the continent the South of England may get a bit from France.
Current winds & temps (blue = below freezing)
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-1.98,69.64,448/loc=17.566,78.857
You are quite correct that a good percentage of the pollution in London has been shown to originate in the EU, especially the now-feared PM2.5s, but also NOx. Source: http://www.kcl.ac.uk. excellent proper scientific report. They explain that the effects of pollution are not additive and they also note that London is second lowest on the WHO polluted city list (led by Stockholm), but that would be good news!
As AGW is debunked pollution has become the new “Fear campaign”. Tom Bawden, the Independents archbishop of AGW now only writes about pollution! He used to publish any old rubbish that mentioned AGW doom, now he’s a pollution expert.
Wheelie-bin was spouting something today, covered here
The Times take
Claim world CO2 emissions are stable and that US fell 3%
…Hmmm … I don’t have faith in their numbers anyway
What were the long term targets ? Are they on the target graph ?
BH has a discussion
Carbon dioxide levels rose at record pace for 2nd straight year
Less CO2 is produced per therm from burning natural gas than from coal – and the USA has been substituting gas for coal, in an economic environment where the absolute demand for power is not expanding much. Of course, the developing world is increasing its use of coal,
among several fuels, as their absolute use of power increases.
For “use of power” read “use of energy.”
Nuclear power is costly, senescent and dangerous. Carbon capture is too expensive at any cost, because it is unnecessary.
Climate change is a false premise for regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Nature converts CO2 to calcite (limestone). Climate change may or may not be occurring, but is is surely NOT caused by human fossil fuels use. Temperature changes cause changes in ambient CO2, with an estimated 800 year time lag.
Others have shown the likely causes of climate change, and they DO NOT include human use of fossil fuels. There is no empirical evidence that fossil fuels use affects climate. Likely and well-documented causes include sunspot cycles, earth/sun orbital changes, cosmic ray effects on clouds and tectonic plate activity. The further point here is that earth naturally recycles all carbon dioxide.
Fossil fuels emit only 3% of total CO2 emissions. 95% comes from rotting vegetation and other sources. All the ambient CO2 in the atmosphere is promptly converted in the oceans to calcite (limestone) and other carbonates, mostly through biological paths. CO2 + CaO => CaCO3 (exothermic). The conversion rate increases with increasing CO2 partial pressure. A dynamic equilibrium-seeking mechanism.
99.84% of all carbon on earth is already sequestered as sediments in the lithosphere. The lithosphere is a massive hungry carbon sink that converts ambient CO2 to carbonate almost as soon as it is emitted. All living or dead organic matter (plants, animals, microbes etc. amount to only 0.00033% of the total carbon mass on earth. Ambient CO2 is only 0.00255%.
Full implementation of the Paris Treaty is now estimated to cost $50 trillion to $100 trillion by 2030–$6,667-$13,333 per human being. Nearly two-thirds of humanity’s cumulative savings over history. And will not affect climate at all.
A modern coal power plant emits few air effluents except water vapor and carbon dioxide. Coal remains the lowest cost and most reliable source of electric energy, along with natural gas. Coal has always competed effectively with natural gas.
Illinois Basin coal now costs less than 1/3 the equivalent cost of natural gas at their respective sources. Coal is more competitive with gas today than it was twenty years ago. That being said, Peabody is probably too stupid and too far gone to survive.
“Nuclear power is costly, senescent and dangerous.”
BOLLOCKS.
It stems from a deep belief that the energy companies/engineers are being sluggish about developing a low CO2 solution and just need some pressure to come up with something suitable. Ignoring the point that nuclear IS the alternative. I do blame the energy companies because they’ve been so busy raking in subsidies that they decided not to tell politicians the truth. What I find amazing is the lack of recognition that countries like Germany and the UK are making very little progress despite the money spent. Like a bad dieter, they keep the same goal date, despite poor progress and plan ever more rapid reductions for the dwindling days remaining.
Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn….
There is no chance that Germany can reduce emissions in the foreseeable future given the migration issue. Germany’s CO2 emissions per capita is circa 10 mt of CO2 per person per year, where as people from say Syria are circa 2 mt of CO2 per person, and say North Africa such as Sudan only about 0.4 mt per person. Migration will greatly increase CO2 emissions in Europe as all these migrants start enjoying the life style of the developed West.
With more than a million migrants in German, there will need to be a massive infrastructure building program since all of these migrants will require housing, electricity, gas, transport, schools, hospitals, shops, extra trains, extra buses etc, German CO2 emissions will necessarily have to increase over the course of the next 10 years, and what is presently say 1 million new migrants will within the next 10 years be several million plus families plus children (and the birth rate will far exceed the German average).
Without a massive investment in infrastructure there will be additional social unrest. To add to this, Germany is phasing out its nuclear power which again will mean additional CO2 emissions. Germany needs to quickly start planning to meet the additional demands that will be put on its infrastructure, building new towns, building more power generation etc,.
There is only one way all of this will go.