Germany will likely miss its goal of cutting emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, the country’s environment minister said Monday, an embarrassing admission for a Government that wants to lead the charge on limiting climate change.
Official estimates project that Europe’s biggest economy will trim its greenhouse gas emissions by 32 per cent or less by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. The next target, a decade later, calls for a 55 per cent drop in emissions from 1990.
“It’s painful for me to have to tell you that we will miss the targets we’ve set for ourselves for 2020,” Svenja Schulze told delegates from more than 30 governments who had gathered in Berlin to prepare for an annual global climate summit in December.