Thread by @MCL1965

1/12: Typically insightful thread from @Sustainable2050, and surely right that German Constitutional Court (GCC) ruling will require a (much) tougher 2030 German emissions target. This is yet another bullish undercurrent for EUAs. @CarbonBubble @CarbonPulse @RedshawAdvisors

https://twitter.com/Sustainable2050/status/1387696415946727426

2/12: At its heart, the Court's ruling is about freedom: specifically, the freedom (@Luisamneubauer, #FridaysForFuture, and others) from disproportionately large – and hence excessively freedom-restricting – emissions reductions after 2030. Per the ruling: bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pre…

3/12: "Provisions that allow for CO2 emissions in the present time constitute an irreversible legal threat to future freedom because every amount of CO2 that is allowed today narrows the remaining options for reducing emissions in compliance with Art.20a of the Basic Law."

4/12: It continues: "If much of the CO2 budget were already depleted by 2030, there would be a heightened risk of serious losses of freedom because there would then be a shorter timeframe (...) to make the transition to climate-neutral behaviour in a way that respects freedom."

5/12: And as @Sustainable2050 said, this is the reality of Germany's current 2030 emissions-reduction target (-55% versus 1990) in that it massively back-loads the burden for net zero by 2050 on to the 2031-2050 timeframe.

6/12: Consider the @Umweltrat chart cited by @Sustainable2050. This shows current German emissions target (-55% by 2030, net zero by 2050) v budget consistent with a 67% chance of 1.75°C. (6.7Gt of CO2 from 2020). Current policy would burn through >90% of 1.75°C budget by 2030.

7/12: If that's not bad enough, consider current policy v German carbon budget consistent with a 50% chance of 1.5°C (4.2Gt from 2020, again per @Umweltrat). In this case, current policy would already burn through the 1.5°C budget by 2026.

8/12: Per GCC ruling Govt must now comply by end of 2022 w/ detailed plan for post-2030 emissions cuts. But w/current polls projecting Greens as largest party after September's general election, the policy response will likely be much more radical for the pre-2030 period as well.

9/12: In short, last week's GCC ruling has huge implications for German climate policy. Would now assume the 2038 end-date for German coal will be brought forward (to 2030 at latest). Would also expect significant further ramp-up of support for electrification and green hydrogen.

10/12: The. most efficient way to do this is to tighten emissions targets for German industrial sectors in EU-ETS. These will have to be tightened anyway under the more ambitious 2030 targets for the EU as a whole but the GCC ruling greatly increases the scale of the cuts needed.

11/12: CONCLUSION: Climate policy will only get tighter over time as scale of the challenge becomes clearer and as the burden on future generations and their freedom becomes increasingly unacceptable. The rational response is therefore to significantly tighten 2030 targets ASAP.

12/12: Or in the words of Germany's greatest poet:

"Freiheit ist nichts als die Möglichkeit, unter allen
Bedingungen das Vernünftige zu tun."

"Freedom is nothing but the possibility to do the rational thing in all circumstances."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1827

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