Fight Against Climate Change: Germany To Shut Down All 84 Of Its Coal-Fired Power Plants By 2038

Germany which primarily relies on coal to generate power has decided to shut down all of its power plants that run on coal by 2038. A 28-member government-appointed group “Coal Commission” took the decision on Saturday after 21-hr long marathon meeting to fulfil its international commitments to fight climate change. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government will be adopting the commission’s recommendations.

A bold move and a challenge for the country

For a country that depends on coal for 40% of the electricity requirement, the decision is bold and will require efforts to accomplish the goal.

According to the International Energy Agency(IEA), 42% of the power generated in 2016 in Germany was from the burning of coal and if one looks at changes since 2000, earlier 53% of the power used to come from coal and though significant, there has been only a change of 11% in the seventeen years. To get rid of the coal-fired power plants and get 40% of the energy from renewable sources in the next 19 years is surely a tough challenge for Germany.

This is tougher especially considering Germany has decided to shut all its Nuclear power plants by 2022 after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. Till now it has already shut down 12 of its 19 nuclear power plants.

The commission recommended $46 billion to ease the pain of the affected areas due to closing down of coal plants. “This is a historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla, chairman of the 28-member government commission reported La times.

Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world and the business leaders are worried that this decision will affect their industries. It will make electricity costly and also will make their products costlier in comparison to foreign companies.

The committee recommended that in the next three years 24 coal powered plants with the capacity of capacity of 12.5 gigawatts will be shut.

The Logical Indian hopes that Germany is able to accomplish the targets before the stipulated time and other countries including India follow the decision. If climate change is not tackled soon, it will bring doom to the human civilization. Countries across the world are facing extreme climate currently – Chicago is freezing at -45 degree Celsius temperature due to the polar vortex.

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