Germany will be closing all its 84 coal-fired power plants over the period of next nineteen years to comply with international commitments on climate change.
Being the largest country in Europe and biggest consumers of coal in the world, Germany had been a leader on cutting CO2 emissions for long, but in recent years missed the reduction targets badly.
Nearly to half of Germany’s electricity comes from coal plants and the government plan to induce spending budget of about $45 billion in the coal regions to facilitate significant shift from coal dominated power production.
Professor for energy economics at the DIW Berlin, the German Institute for Economic Research, Claudia Kemfert, said the move is a big moment for the country in climate policy and with this Germany could once again become a leader in fighting climate change.
Kemfert added, “It’s also an important signal for the world that Germany is again getting serious about climate change: a very big industrial nation that depends so much on coal is switching it off.”
The shutdown of coal power plants mean the country will be counting on renewable energy to provide up to 80 percent of the power by 2040. Currently it accounts for 41 percent of the total electricity produced in Germany.
In early 1990s the CO2 emissions dropped to appreciable level in Germany.
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