(Bloomberg) — Building new coal-power plants in Germany means the country will miss government targets to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, the environmental ministry said, countering earlier claims by Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel.
If Europe’s largest economy builds new fossil-fuel power plants, CO2 emissions will decline 25 percent by 2020 compared with a plan of 40 percent, according to a study by Joachim Nitsch of the German DLR institute that was commissioned by the ministry. The study appeared today on the environment ministry’s Web site.
Gabriel supports the construction of new coal-power plants and has said Germany will be able to meet its own CO2 emissions targets even with new fossil fuel-based electricity generation. Techniques to reduce CO2 such as carbon capture and storage won’t have an impact on reducing the greenhouse gas, blamed for global warming, until after 2020, the study said.
“Mr. Gabriel should start taking the facts of scientists into account and stop selling new coal-plants as actual climate protection,” Greenpeace energy policy analyst Andree Boehling said in an e-mailed statement. “Otherwise, the environment minister himself will become the biggest threat to climate protection.”
By Jeremy van Loon
Sourced From
Related posts:
- UK Government Needs to Take Action Against Coal-Fired Plants
- DOE to Distribute $430M for Clean Coal Power Initiative
- Australia: Emissions Scheme Would Promote Gas-Fired Plants and Renewable Energy
- New York to Introduce Cap-and-Trade for Power Plants
- Energy Consultancy Reports Commercial Clean-Coal Unexpected Till 2020