EU should relax net-zero target, German energy minister says

BRUSSELS — The European Union should loosen its “rigid” adherence to climate neutrality and allow itself to miss its 2050 net-zero goal by up to 10 percent, Germany’s minister for energy and economy told a major oil and gas conference in the United States.

Speaking at the annual CERAWeek conference in Texas late Monday, Katherina Reiche called the EU’s goal to slash its planet-warming pollution to net zero by mid-century into question.

Europe, for a long time, “had left a corridor, there wasn’t a net-zero … it was, for Europe, a goal [to reduce emissions] between 85 and 95 percent,” she claimed, likely referring to a non-binding European Commission roadmap from 2011.

“There is a flexibility we have to get back, accept not 100 percent solutions but allowing different solutions and technologies and accept that there might be a gap of maybe a 5 or 10 percent by 2050,” she added. “If you have strict and rigid goals, you bind yourself, it ends up that you lose industries that you need … and we can’t afford that we lose our energy-intensive industries in Europe and in Germany.”

Reiche’s comments mark a rare departure from the EU consensus.

The bloc set itself a net-zero by 2050 goal in 2019, with only Poland not formally committing to the new milestone. Last year, EU governments agreed on an intermediate target to slash the bloc’s emissions by up to 90 percent by 2040. Germany has set itself even stricter goals, aiming to become climate neutral by 2045.

Throughout her remarks at CERAWeek, Reiche stressed that economic growth must come before green targets.

“At the end of the day, it is good to have a goal of sustainability — but if sustainability crashes your economy, you have to readjust,” she said. “And that’s what we’re doing right now.”

In Germany, Reiche has in recent months unveiled plans to build out gas power plants, scrap the previous government’s gas boiler phaseout, remove subsidies for rooftop solar panels, and deprioritize the connection of renewables from the country’s power grid.

She also told the Texas audience that Germany should drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea, saying: “We have a gas field in the North Sea, which we don’t want to explore. I think we can’t stick to this attitude. We have to also go into our own reserves.”

And she insisted: “I am not speaking against sustainability, and not against a climate target. But if a climate target ignores other things you have to think of, especially affordability and abundance … you have to change course.”

Mike Lee contributed to this report from Texas.