The German government’s proposed heating reforms would lead to a substantial increase of projected emissions and make it more difficult to reach climate targets, according to a report by environmental think tank Öko-Institut. Compared to the current legal framework, the proposal – known as the Building Modernisation Act – would increase the gap between expected cumulative emissions and the binding emissions budget until 2040 by between 108 and 172 million tonnes, the report said.
The main reason for the projected increase of emissions is the planned abolition of the requirement that newly installed heating systems run on at least 65 percent of renewable energy, the authors said.
“The calculations to date clearly show that the 65 percent rule has a significant impact on the emissions path of the building sector,” Öko-Institut researcher Sibylle Braungardt said in a press release. “If this binding standard is removed, a key driver for the switch to renewable heat will be missing – and the transformation will slow down significantly.”
Source: ECEEE
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