An Assessment of Germany’s Remaining CO2 Budget: Can Germany Still Afford to Destroy Villages to Burn More Coal?

Abstract

The global climate budget for 1.5°C necessitates distributing future CO2 emissions to individual countries. In Germany, this translates to 3.1 billion tons (January 2022). All sectors must engage to meet this target, particularly the lignite (i.e. low-grade brown coal) sector. This entails leaving significant reserves untapped. Also, economic factors are already driving a decline in coal consumption, aided by Germany’s renewable expansion and rising CO2 prices. Forecasts suggest lignite phase-out by 2030, prompting reevaluation of mining plans without devastation of villages. The paper proposes new mining plans for the main lignite regions Rhineland and Lusatia.