In the position paper “Towards a Climate-neutral Germany: Policy Options for the Technological Transition, Reducing Consumption and Carbon Management”, experts from “Energy Systems of the Future” (ESYS) – a joint initiative of the academies of science acatech, Leopoldina and the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities – identify 22 policy areas that are key to achieving a climate-neutral Germany. The policy areas span everything from the chemical, steel and cement industries to the building, housing, mobility and recycling sectors. The discussion is based on an extensive meta-analysis and the working group’s own simulated scenarios. The paper concludes that the transformation of the energy system must be approached and implemented as a societal process. This will mean meeting the relevant technological, economic and infrastructure requirements as soon as possible.
Stepping up the technological transition of the energy system and measures to enable climate-neutral industry, creating incentives for sufficiency and efficiency, capturing and storing carbon
The working group sees the expansion of renewables and a technological transition in the heating, transport and industrial sectors as the main pillars of the transformation. However, if current energy consumption patterns remain unchanged, it is highly unlikely that this alone will be enough to meet the climate targets. It will also be necessary to reduce energy consumption – not just by increasing energy efficiency, but also by reducing demand for energy services (sufficiency).
According to the experts, this will call for active policy measures. As emphasised by Anke Weidlich, co-chair of the working group and Professor of Control and Integration of Grids at the Institute for Sustainable Systems Engineering (INATECH) at the University of Freiburg, “To achieve the necessary reduction in energy service demand, we need good, climate-friendly alternatives, especially in the housing and mobility sectors. These must become the norm everywhere and progressively replace the current high-emission solutions. This will be particularly important if Germany wishes to increase its contribution to meeting the Paris climate targets. To do this, it will need to achieve climate neutrality even sooner, and this will be impossible without reducing energy demand.”
In addition to this, processes and sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, especially industry, will need to become climate-neutral. The working group recommends a three-pronged approach to achieving climate-neutral industry: implementation of climate-neutral processes based on green electricity and green hydrogen, measures to strengthen circularity, and efficient use of materials or their replacement by climate-friendlier alternatives.
However successful these measures are, it will still be necessary to offset difficult-to-avoid emissions from industry and farming through negative emissions achieved by permanently removing CO2 from the atmosphere. This will call for a new public debate about carbon capture and storage (CCS). It will also be important to provide regulatory support for the development and market rollout of both technological and natural carbon dioxide removal methods and to formulate an overarching sustainable carbon management strategy.
The experts are adamant that only a combination of social, technological and economic solutions can enable a resilient transformation pathway where potential missed targets in some areas can be mitigated by successes in other areas. As emphasised by Mario Ragwitz, co-chair of the working group, Director of the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems IEG and Professor of Integrated Energy Infrastructures at the Brandenburg University of Technology, “Improvements in energy efficiency should not diminish efforts to expand renewables and upgrade the energy infrastructure. Similarly, while it is vital to debate and develop carbon dioxide removal methods, this should not detract from efforts to reduce emissions. We cannot meet the relevant targets by only focusing on one or other of the available options.”
