GERMANY: NGO dismisses prediction that renewable and CO2 targets will not be met

But Greenpeace has dismissed Energy Dialogue 2000 as “irrelevant”. “The report doesn’t reflect Government views,” Bill Hear, Greenpeace International’s climate change campaigner told edie. “It’s an industry group trying to pre-empt the interministerial working group’s report [on how Germany will meet Kyoto targets], which is due out in July.”

Environmental NGOs were so frustrated by the energy dialogue that they resigned several weeks ago and have refused to sign the final version of the report. “The report has no status and the NGOs withdrew en masse because it wasn’t going anywhere,” says Hear.

Energy Dialogue 2000 concludes that the target to reduce German CO2 emissions by 25% on 1990 levels by 2005 will not be met and that a reduction of only 14% will be possible. The report also says that renewable energy will only make up 10.6% of German electricity consumption by 2010, instead of the 12.5% recently suggested by the EC (see related story).