Federal Statistical Office presents 2010 Indicator Report on the German Sustainability Strategy
The Indicator Report 2010 published today by the Federal Statistical Office evaluates the various developments of environmental indicators. Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen was pleased that developments, in particular in two important environment policy fields, point in the right direction: "The continuing decrease of greenhouse gas emissions shows that Germany plays a pioneering role in climate protection. We will work towards playing this role in the future too. This includes advancing climate protection domestically with concrete measures. The continuously increasing share of renewable energies in energy consumption shows that renewable energy sources are a driving force here. The more renewable energy we use, the larger the decrease in gases which are harmful to the climate".
The 2002 National Sustainability Strategy had defined sustainable development targets for 21 different sectors, twelve of which have a direct environment link. Every two years the Federal Statistical Office reviews to what extent these targets have been reached. Since 2008 developments have been assigned weather symbols to make understanding them easier and faster: "sunny", "slightly cloudy", "cloudy", "thunderstorm".
The continuous greenhouse gas emissions decrease is marked "sunny". The 2002 strategy target of a 21 percent reduction by 2010 compared with 1990 was already reached in 2008 with a reduction of 22.4 percent. In its coalition agreement the federal government agreed on a 40 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 1990.
As far as the share of renewable energies in energy consumption is concerned, the targets established in 2002 were reached long before the 2010 deadline. The Federal Statistical Office's report states that Germany is on the right path also with regard to the new targets for 2020: in 2009 the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption was 16.1 percent, the target is 30 percent. In so-called primary energy consumption, which reflects the source of energy used for the generation of electricity, heat and fuel, renewable energies had a share of 8.9 percent in 2009 – the target for 2020 is 10 percent. Both areas were awarded the "sunny" symbol for positive developments.
Whilst decoupling energy consumption from economic growth is on a good path and was awarded a "slightly cloudy" sign, the use of resources did not decrease as much as needed to reach the target of doubling productivity between 1994 and 2020. Up to 2008 there was only an increase of 39.6 percent. Despite the positive trend the Federal Statistical Office awarded a "cloudy" symbol to this development.
Further efforts are needed with regard to the use of the limited resource land. The overall development is positive: land consumption was reduced from 120 hectares per day between 1993-1996 to 104 hectares per day in 2008. However, this falls far short of the strategy's target of reducing daily consumption to 30 hectares per day by 2020. The Federal Statistical Office thus awarded a "cloudy" symbol to this development.
For the complete 2010 Indicator Report see: