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CLIMATE CRISIS

Germany hits emissions-reduction target in 2022

Germany kept greenhouse gas emissions under its target level in 2022 despite a coal-driven increase in pollution in the energy sector, figures published Wednesday showed.

Wind turbines in Bavaria
Wind turbines in Bavaria. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Daniel Vogl

Europe’s largest economy reduced its emissions by 1.9 percent in 2022 compared with the previous year, the federal environment agency said in a statement.

In total, Germany pumped out 746 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2022, 10 million tonnes less than its legal target for the year.

The drop came despite rising emissions in the energy sector, as Germany resorted to mothballed coal power plants to manage an energy crisis unleashed by the war in Ukraine.

The dwindling of important natural gas supplies from Russia sent Germany scrambling to find alternative sources of energy to heat its homes and power industry.

Emissions in the energy sector rose by 4.4 percent overall, the second consecutive year they had gone up, according to the agency.

Since 1990, Germany had managed to reduce its emissions by 40.4 percent, it said.

READ ALSO: Climate change the ‘biggest worry’ for people in Germany

But the traditional industrial powerhouse would have to pick up the pace to hit its climate targets for 2030.

Emissions needed to be driven down by six percent a year, while Germany was averaging a yearly reduction of under two percent since 2010, the agency said.

In 2022, a record 20.4 percent of Germany’s energy was produced from renewables such as solar and wind, according to the federal body.

Nonetheless, “a much faster pace in the expansion of renewable energy” was essential to hit the 2030 target, agency chief Dirk Messner said.

“We simply cannot afford this fatal dependence on fossil fuels,” Messner said.

“I had expected the energy numbers to be worse given the Russian war of aggression,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.

The results were “encouraging”, Habeck said, while calling on climate protection measures to be expanded “without hesitation”.

A previous study by the energy think tank Agora Energiewende calculated Germany had slightly overshot its target for 2022.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

European countries smash September temperature records

Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland announced their hottest Septembers on record on Friday, in a year expected to be the warmest in human history as climate change accelerates.

European countries smash September temperature records

The unseasonably warm weather in Europe came after the EU climate monitor said earlier this month that global temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere summer were the hottest on record.

French weather authority Meteo-France said the September temperature average in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 degrees Fahrenheit), between 3.5C and 3.6C above the 1991-2020 reference period.

Average temperatures in France have been exceeding monthly norms consistently for almost two years.

In neighbouring Germany, weather office DWD said this month was the hottest September since national records started, almost 4C higher than the 1961-1990 baseline.

Poland’s weather institute announced September temperatures were 3.6C higher than average and the hottest for the month since records began more than 100 years ago.

National weather bodies in the Alpine nations of Austria and Switzerland also recorded their hottest-ever average September temperatures, a day after a study revealed Swiss glaciers lost 10 percent of their volume in two years amid extreme warming.

The Spanish and Portuguese national weather institutes warned abnormally warm temperatures were going to hit this weekend, with the mercury topping 35C in parts of southern Spain on Friday.

READ ALSO: MAP: The parts of Spain that are most and least affected by global warming

Records ‘systematically’ brokenĀ 

Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is driving global temperatures higher, with the world at around 1.2C of warming above pre-industrial levels.

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service told AFP earlier this month that 2023 is likely to be the hottest year humanity has experienced.

Higher temperatures are likely to be on the horizon as the El Nino weather phenomenon — which warms waters in the southern Pacific and beyond — has only just begun.

The disruption to the planet’s climate systems is making extreme weather events like heatwaves, drought, wildfires and storms more frequent and intense, causing greater losses of life and property.

World leaders will gather in Dubai from November 30 for crunch UN talks aimed at curbing the worst effects of climate change, including limiting warming to 1.5C, a goal of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.

Slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions — notably by phasing out the consumption of polluting gas, oil and coal — climate finance and boosting renewable energy capacity will be at the heart of the discussions.

“Until we reach carbon neutrality, heat records are going to be systematically broken week after week, month after month, year after year,” UN climate report lead author Francois Gemenne told AFP this week.

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