Over the past year, China has installed over 350 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity, once again breaking all records. But while the energy sector is making progress, China’s chemical industry jeopardizes the country’s climate targets. The sector’s coal consumption has risen rapidly in recent years.The government is promoting the use of coal as […]
The demandIn its election manifesto, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demands that “on the way” to phasing out coal, there can be “no further final shutdown of coal-fired power plants as long as no new gas-fired power plants” have been built to replace them. According to a CDU/CSU parliamentary group discussion paper, “new controllable capacity” […]
The traffic light coalition already wanted to regulate carbon capture and storage from industry and the electricity sector. However, its carbon management strategy is still stuck in the parliamentary process – it is unclear whether it will be adopted with the help of the CDU/CSU.The claimThe CDU/CSU also wants to “legally enable” CCS for the […]
A mandatory solar panel requirement for the roofs of residential and office buildings would be compatible with the German constitution. This is the conclusion of a new legal opinion commissioned from a law firm by the environmental organization WWF. Such a “solar standard” could also be implemented “promptly,” the report concludes. According to the WWF, […]
Germany still cannot get the mobility transition off the ground: Only 13.5 percent of newly registered cars in 2024 were pure EVs – in addition, the proportion of plug-in hybrids was 6.8 percent. Last year, only around 380,000 EVs were newly registered, 27.5 percent fewer than the year before. As the overall market also slowed […]
China plans to connect at least 200 gigawatts of new solar and wind power capacity to its grid between 2025 and 2027. This is according to a new “Action Plan for Optimizing Grid Control Capacity” from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The plan states that curtailment, meaning the shutdown of renewable energies during […]
Japan aims to generate 40 to 50 percent of its electricity mix from renewable energies and 20 percent from nuclear energy by 2040. This is according to a draft from the Ministry of Industry on the revision of energy policy. Last year, the share of renewables was 22.9 percent and the share of nuclear power […]
According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global coal demand this year has been higher than ever before. It increased by one percent to 8.77 billion tons. According to the IEA, demand for coal will plateau in the next three years and reach around 8.87 billion tons in 2027.The IEA reports continued significant […]
One of the hotly debated topics in the German parliamentary election campaign will be energy and climate. But unlike the last election in 2019, when Germany was shaped by the “Fridays for Future” demonstrations and the severe weather disaster in the Ahr Valley, there has been little competition for the most ambitious climate policy in […]
China appears to have reached a peak in oil consumption. While 399 million tons of refined oil were consumed in 2023, the figure was already 1.3 percent lower in 2024 (394 million tons), according to calculations by a research institute of the national oil company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).China is the world’s largest oil importer. […]
