Germany to reach Kyoto targets

Germany has committed to reducing emissions of the six most damaging greenhouse gases by 21% of 1990 levels by 2012. The country has already reached 18.7 percentage points towards that goal, Trittin announced in Berlin this week.

Germany has already adopted the draught law on implementing of the Kyoto Protocol, making Germany “world champion in active climate protection policy”, he added.

Trittin believes that EU member states will have enshrined the Kyoto Protocol in national legislation by next summer. The Protocol will become internationally valid if at least 55 signatory states put it into their laws, and if the states concerned are responsible for 55% of international emissions of carbon dioxide [CO2].

The first condition has already been met, and the second is set to be achieved as the EU, Russia, Japan and Eastern Europe intend to implement the protocol, Trittin added.

He noted that climate protection and opting out of nuclear energy also provide economic advantages, but would not commit himself to saying whether he believes a national climate protection target, providing for a reduction of CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020, would be desirable. Economics Minister Werner Mueller’s Energy Report claims there would be competitive disadvantages in such a move.