The election campaign in Germany is gaining momentum, and with it are the energy and climate policy debates. As part of our fact check series, today we look at the call to keep coal-fired power plants on the grid for longer if gas-fired power plants cannot be built quickly enough to replace them. Spoiler: As is often the case, it is a little more complicated than it may sound.
We also report on a surprising coal phase-out in Poland. The coal country is rapidly abandoning dirty energy as power plants and mines become more expensive. And yet, the government faces new problems. This is also the case in Kenya, one of the little-known pioneers of climate policy in the Global South. Today, we report on the current conditions of the country’s energy transition.
As always, we also have several news items for you. For example, the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles are by no means an exception, considering other large fires around the world in recent years – which we have all almost forgotten about.
In its election manifesto, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demands that “on the way” to phasing out coal, there can be “no further final shutdown of coal-fired power plants as long as no new gas-fired power plants” have been built to replace them. According to a CDU/CSU parliamentary group discussion paper, “new controllable capacity” will be needed in the future to ensure a reliable supply. The Green Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, also questioned the coal phase-out by 2030 if there was insufficient capacity to meet demand. “For me, energy security always has absolute priority,” Habeck said.
This demand would not significantly change the current approach. Although operators can exit earlier than provided for by law, a review will then be carried out to determine whether energy security is still guaranteed despite the exit. If this is not the case, the power plants will go into reserve and the operators will receive compensation, which will be funded via grid fees.
Coal is already one of the most expensive energy sources. The shutdown of coal-fired power plants “is currently being driven by a high carbon price,” energy economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) told Table.Briefings. Bernd Weber from the think tank Epico also says: “By the early 2030s at the latest, the carbon price will put coal-fired power plant operators under so much economic pressure that it will hardly make sense to continue operating the power plants. With European emissions trading, the path is very clear: coal will no longer be profitable.”
However, according to the coal compromise, ten large lignite-fired power plant units will not only be permanently decommissioned by the end of the 2020s – two of these units will also be transferred to what is known as security standby at the end of 2025 and the end of 2027. In the event of high power demand or dark doldrums, they are intended to ensure energy security if the grid and capacity reserves are insufficient.
According to Agora Energiewende, there is a risk of “higher electricity costs and CO2 emissions” if “coal-fired power plants remain on the grid for an unnecessarily long time.” The reduction in emissions of recent years is mainly due to the shutdown of coal-fired power plants. This would change little because all power plants are subject to the EU ETS. For this reason, Agora calls for “very timely tenders for the construction of H2-ready power plants.”
Kemfert proposes a “market-driven supply security reserve” instead of continued operation to ensure a stable supply. The envisaged capacity market could also facilitate a stable energy supply. “The new German government should focus on the rapid establishment of a capacity market and also consider electricity storage or flexible demand management,” says Andreas Fischer, an economist at the German Economic Institute (IW).
According to Weber from Epico, the coal phase-out in 2030 would result in a “capacity gap of at least 10 GW”. To keep it as small as possible, there is “a third factor in addition to coal and planned H2-ready gas-fired power plants: Germany must become better at efficiently matching electricity supply and demand. We can better adapt electricity demand in households and industry and use storage solutions.” This would reduce the need for reserve power plants and electricity costs and increase energy stability. In addition, the European electricity market still has “a lot of untapped potential to reduce electricity costs through cross-border trading and ensure greater flexibility in the electricity system,” says Weber. Even during the dark doldrums of late 2024, the German reserve coal-fired power plants remained offline. The European electricity market ensured a stable energy supply.
A delayed coal phase-out would likely increase electricity prices, as “coal-fired power plant operators would have to buy expensive emissions allowances,” as Kemfert says. However, even H2-ready gas-fired power plants would not supply cheap electricity in the early 2030s, as hydrogen will initially remain very expensive. Moreover, if the power plants had to be kept in reserve for longer, grid fees would continue to rise as they fund this reserve, says Fischer from IW.
Even though Robert Habeck made similar comments at the end of last year, implementation of the proposal is unpopular with the Green Party base and is hardly realistic in a potential government coalition between the Greens and the CDU/CSU. Implementation would be more conceivable in a CDU/CSU-SPD government.
The continued operation of coal-fired power plants if no gas-fired power plants are available as a replacement is logical. However, the proposal changes little about the current approach. To ensure a stable energy supply without too many fossil reserves, experts propose “market-driven supply security reserves” and urge the rapid creation of a capacity market. Better demand management and the EU electricity market offer the potential for more flexibility. If these instruments are not sufficiently available by 2030, more coal-fired power plants could remain in reserve than previously planned.
In the traditional coal country of Poland, the phase-out of hard coal and lignite is making rapid progress. Old, expensive power plants are going offline, and renewable energy is growing strongly. Experts call for coal to be phased out by 2035, ahead of the German deadline of 2038, but the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has yet to present a plan for the energy transition. It fears protests against the closure of coal mines and plans high subsidies for coal and, soon, for the country’s first nuclear power plant.
Last week, a clear signal came from Katowice, the capital of the Upper Silesian coalfield: The city joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance – an alliance for a rapid phase-out of coal combustion. Upper Silesia has been the heart of the Polish coal and steel industry for over 100 years – and one of the most polluted areas in Europe. “Clean air is what matters most to us today,” says the mayor of Katowice, Marcin Krupa. There is no alternative to phasing out coal, because “climate change is progressing.”
Before the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Poland generated almost all of its electricity and heating energy from burning coal and lignite. As recently as 2015, coal still accounted for over 80 percent of electricity generation. The right-wing populist PiS government of Jarosław Kaczyński, which came to power at the time, regularly questioned climate change and defended Polish coal mining. Its energy plan did not envisage phasing out coal before 2049.
The new democratic coalition now has to make adjustments. During the 2023 election campaign, Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised to present a detailed plan for the energy transition to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent through 2030. An ambitious target: Since 1990, the country has only reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by around 20 percent, while the EU-27 has achieved 30.7 percent. However, the Tusk government’s plan has been over a year in the making. “The energy transition is currently taking place without a helmsman,” Joanna Pandera, President of the Energy Forum think tank, told Table.Briefings. “The shifts in the energy sector are not the result of a comprehensive vision of decarbonizing the economy, but the result of market competition and the ingenuity of entrepreneurs and citizens.” However, she believes that the urgently needed changes to the grid and market organization, which the government is responsible for, are lagging behind.
Nevertheless, Poland ranks among the countries currently switching away from coal and towards renewable energy sources the fastest. In 2024, the share of coal in the electricity mix fell to 57.1 percent, while renewables rose to 29.6 percent. Poland generated around 95.5 terawatt hours (TWh) from coal combustion, around five TWh less than one year earlier.
Wind farms alone generated 24.5 TWh of electricity (14.7 percent) – although the PiS government often tried to block the expansion of wind power plants. The figures for photovoltaics are even better: As part of the EU-funded “My Electricity” program, over 1.3 million households have installed solar panels in the past six years. They generated around 12.5 TWh of energy (7.5 percent) – in 2018, this figure was just 0.3 TWh. The supply gap was closed primarily with natural gas plants – their electricity generation rose from ten TWh in 2017 to almost 15 TWh in 2023. Since the war in Ukraine, gas has been pumped through a new pipeline, mainly from Norway.
The government in Warsaw knows that the continued operation of Polish coal-based power and heating plants is slowly becoming uneconomical, as most are very old and inefficient and are breaking down more frequently. According to an industry report, the average age of Poland’s coal and lignite-fired power plants is 37 years.
But politicians face a problem with phasing out coal – coal mining. In 2012, the country still produced almost 80 million tons of hard coal and nearly 65 million tons of lignite. In 2023, hard coal production fell to 49 million tons – the lowest level since 1910. The downward trend continues faster than all government forecasts of the last decade had predicted. More and more coal mines are unprofitable. In August 2024, the extraction cost for one ton of coal was 824 zloty (around €193); on the global market, it is traded for €110.
But the Tusk government, too, shies away from closing mines. It is afraid of the strikes by the 75,000 miners, which have already shaken the country several times in the past. To secure jobs and meet their rising wage demands, Warsaw plans to provide a total of nine billion zlotys (€2.1 billion) in subsidies for coal mining in 2025. However, given the falling demand for coal, Poland cannot afford to operate so many mines. Experts predict that only a few of the most efficient mines will still be in operation in the next five years.
However, the Council on Energy Security and Climate, which includes several renowned economic and energy experts, urges the Tusk government to set 2035 as the date for phasing out coal-fired power generation. Green Deputy Environment Minister Urszula Zielińska, who wants to promote the expansion of wind farms in the Baltic Sea, also supports the call.
The Tusk government is also banking on nuclear energy for the future. Last week, after years of searching for a site, it decided to spend over 60 billion zlotys (€14 billion) on the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino on the Baltic Sea. The contract was awarded to the US consortium Westinghouse-Bechtel. The nuclear power plant will have three reactors of 1,000 megawatts each, the first of which will go into operation in 2035 and will be operated by the state-owned company Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe.
Poland plans to build a second nuclear power plant at a later date, but the site has not yet been chosen. According to a study by the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment, almost 90 percent of the Polish population supports the construction of nuclear power plants – a record in the EU.
According to media reports, at least 65 people were killed in protests in Kenya in 2024, particularly in July and August of that year. This makes 2024 probably the most challenging political year for President William Ruto. The protests were triggered by Ruto’s reform plans as part of the Finance Act. Following fierce protests, Ruto withdrew the law and reshuffled his cabinet. Many government projects came to a standstill and had to be evaluated.
The protesters accused the projects of being cost-intensive and riddled with corruption. However, one topic remained largely unaffected by the protests: Kenya’s green energy transition. The Kenyan government is pushing ahead with its plans, even in times of crisis – although the implementation of the transformation is not without criticism.
Just a few months ago, on October 24, Kenya’s President William Ruto visited Menengai in Nakuru County for the ground-breaking ceremony for the 35-megawatt geothermal power plant. Ruto also attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Kenya Electricity Generation Company and the Kaishan Group, a Chinese compressor manufacturer. The two companies agreed to partner on the production of green ammonia.
In 2024, the then-Minister of Energy and current Minister of Transport Davis Chirchir also announced that the Kenyan government wanted to reduce its annual spending on fossil fuel imports. Most recently, spending amounted to over 7.2 billion US dollars. “We can quickly use our 92 percent of cheap renewable energy from geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind to power our mobility sector and protect the economy from net outflows,” said Chirchir.
However, news broke in November that Ruto, who likes to present himself as Africa’s climate pioneer, would not attend COP29 in Baku. Instead, Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi represented him. But Ruto’s absence was not a policy shift, but a concession to the Kenyan people, who had accused him of going on too many foreign visits. Ruto had made two trips abroad alone in the week before the COP.
As a result, Ruto’s climate policy is also at least indirectly restricted by the protests. Some voices in Kenya accuse Ruto of having his climate policy dictated by the West. Steve Biko Wafula, investment analyst at the Hidalgo Investment Group, wrote on the X news service back in September: “Ruto’s affinity with Climate talk is the proof we need that he isn’t his own man. Climate talk isn’t an African issue. Ruto is being used to curtail the growth of Kenya and Africa in general.”
Nevertheless, critics are far in the minority. According to Waithaka N. Iraki, Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Nairobi, there are several reasons why Kenya’s green transformation is weathering the political storm. Kenya has several decisive advantages thanks to its geological conditions, which include geothermal energy, wind, and hydropower. “The economic openness also made it easy for investors to come to the country,” Iraki adds. With its “Vision 2030” development plan, Kenya also offered investors strategic incentives to focus on green energy early on.
Iraki cites another possible reason as not insignificant: “It is possible that those in power have invested in renewable energies themselves,” he says. The field is lucrative, as renewable energies are likely to be future-proof in the face of global warming and climate change.
The Energy Transition and Investment Plan of the Kenyan Ministry of Energy lists four key decarbonization technologies that are intended to ensure an orderly transition to green energy:
This spring, the Kenyan President will once again have the opportunity to present himself as a climate transition pioneer. Nairobi will once again host the African Climate Summit. And this time, Ruto will not have to travel abroad.
Germany has set itself the goal of achieving net zero by 2045. The role of agriculture in reaching this goal is becoming increasingly important for two reasons:
Over the past 20 years, greenhouse gas emissions in Germany have fallen by around 34 percent overall – yet the reduction in agriculture and peatlands used for agriculture was only around five percent. As a result, the sector’s share of total emissions has risen from less than ten percent to over 14 percent.
Due to the progressive decarbonization of other sectors, it will perspectively rise further. It can be assumed that agriculture will cause a significant proportion of residual emissions in 2045, which will have to be offset by negative emissions in order to achieve net zero – and that costs money. This increases the pressure to reduce agricultural emissions.
Three areas of action are particularly important:
In addition to reducing emissions, political incentives should be created to bind carbon from the air in natural systems such as hedges, trees and soils, but also in materials produced from them, such as building materials, in the long term, thus creating negative emissions. Two fields of action are important here:
In conclusion, it is evident that the significant climate action potential of agriculture has so far been insufficiently translated into tangible economic opportunities for agriculture and rural areas. Here lies a tremendous opportunity for the next federal government.
Harald Grethe is co-director of the think tank Agora Agrar. He has been Professor of International Agricultural Trade and Development at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since 2016. He previously headed the Department of Agricultural and Food Policy at the University of Hohenheim and was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (WBAE) from 2012 to 2020.
The election campaign in Germany is gaining momentum, and with it are the energy and climate policy debates. As part of our fact check series, today we look at the call to keep coal-fired power plants on the grid for longer if gas-fired power plants cannot be built quickly enough to replace them. Spoiler: As is often the case, it is a little more complicated than it may sound.
We also report on a surprising coal phase-out in Poland. The coal country is rapidly abandoning dirty energy as power plants and mines become more expensive. And yet, the government faces new problems. This is also the case in Kenya, one of the little-known pioneers of climate policy in the Global South. Today, we report on the current conditions of the country’s energy transition.
As always, we also have several news items for you. For example, the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles are by no means an exception, considering other large fires around the world in recent years – which we have all almost forgotten about.
In its election manifesto, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demands that “on the way” to phasing out coal, there can be “no further final shutdown of coal-fired power plants as long as no new gas-fired power plants” have been built to replace them. According to a CDU/CSU parliamentary group discussion paper, “new controllable capacity” will be needed in the future to ensure a reliable supply. The Green Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, also questioned the coal phase-out by 2030 if there was insufficient capacity to meet demand. “For me, energy security always has absolute priority,” Habeck said.
This demand would not significantly change the current approach. Although operators can exit earlier than provided for by law, a review will then be carried out to determine whether energy security is still guaranteed despite the exit. If this is not the case, the power plants will go into reserve and the operators will receive compensation, which will be funded via grid fees.
Coal is already one of the most expensive energy sources. The shutdown of coal-fired power plants “is currently being driven by a high carbon price,” energy economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) told Table.Briefings. Bernd Weber from the think tank Epico also says: “By the early 2030s at the latest, the carbon price will put coal-fired power plant operators under so much economic pressure that it will hardly make sense to continue operating the power plants. With European emissions trading, the path is very clear: coal will no longer be profitable.”
However, according to the coal compromise, ten large lignite-fired power plant units will not only be permanently decommissioned by the end of the 2020s – two of these units will also be transferred to what is known as security standby at the end of 2025 and the end of 2027. In the event of high power demand or dark doldrums, they are intended to ensure energy security if the grid and capacity reserves are insufficient.
According to Agora Energiewende, there is a risk of “higher electricity costs and CO2 emissions” if “coal-fired power plants remain on the grid for an unnecessarily long time.” The reduction in emissions of recent years is mainly due to the shutdown of coal-fired power plants. This would change little because all power plants are subject to the EU ETS. For this reason, Agora calls for “very timely tenders for the construction of H2-ready power plants.”
Kemfert proposes a “market-driven supply security reserve” instead of continued operation to ensure a stable supply. The envisaged capacity market could also facilitate a stable energy supply. “The new German government should focus on the rapid establishment of a capacity market and also consider electricity storage or flexible demand management,” says Andreas Fischer, an economist at the German Economic Institute (IW).
According to Weber from Epico, the coal phase-out in 2030 would result in a “capacity gap of at least 10 GW”. To keep it as small as possible, there is “a third factor in addition to coal and planned H2-ready gas-fired power plants: Germany must become better at efficiently matching electricity supply and demand. We can better adapt electricity demand in households and industry and use storage solutions.” This would reduce the need for reserve power plants and electricity costs and increase energy stability. In addition, the European electricity market still has “a lot of untapped potential to reduce electricity costs through cross-border trading and ensure greater flexibility in the electricity system,” says Weber. Even during the dark doldrums of late 2024, the German reserve coal-fired power plants remained offline. The European electricity market ensured a stable energy supply.
A delayed coal phase-out would likely increase electricity prices, as “coal-fired power plant operators would have to buy expensive emissions allowances,” as Kemfert says. However, even H2-ready gas-fired power plants would not supply cheap electricity in the early 2030s, as hydrogen will initially remain very expensive. Moreover, if the power plants had to be kept in reserve for longer, grid fees would continue to rise as they fund this reserve, says Fischer from IW.
Even though Robert Habeck made similar comments at the end of last year, implementation of the proposal is unpopular with the Green Party base and is hardly realistic in a potential government coalition between the Greens and the CDU/CSU. Implementation would be more conceivable in a CDU/CSU-SPD government.
The continued operation of coal-fired power plants if no gas-fired power plants are available as a replacement is logical. However, the proposal changes little about the current approach. To ensure a stable energy supply without too many fossil reserves, experts propose “market-driven supply security reserves” and urge the rapid creation of a capacity market. Better demand management and the EU electricity market offer the potential for more flexibility. If these instruments are not sufficiently available by 2030, more coal-fired power plants could remain in reserve than previously planned.
In the traditional coal country of Poland, the phase-out of hard coal and lignite is making rapid progress. Old, expensive power plants are going offline, and renewable energy is growing strongly. Experts call for coal to be phased out by 2035, ahead of the German deadline of 2038, but the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has yet to present a plan for the energy transition. It fears protests against the closure of coal mines and plans high subsidies for coal and, soon, for the country’s first nuclear power plant.
Last week, a clear signal came from Katowice, the capital of the Upper Silesian coalfield: The city joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance – an alliance for a rapid phase-out of coal combustion. Upper Silesia has been the heart of the Polish coal and steel industry for over 100 years – and one of the most polluted areas in Europe. “Clean air is what matters most to us today,” says the mayor of Katowice, Marcin Krupa. There is no alternative to phasing out coal, because “climate change is progressing.”
Before the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Poland generated almost all of its electricity and heating energy from burning coal and lignite. As recently as 2015, coal still accounted for over 80 percent of electricity generation. The right-wing populist PiS government of Jarosław Kaczyński, which came to power at the time, regularly questioned climate change and defended Polish coal mining. Its energy plan did not envisage phasing out coal before 2049.
The new democratic coalition now has to make adjustments. During the 2023 election campaign, Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised to present a detailed plan for the energy transition to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent through 2030. An ambitious target: Since 1990, the country has only reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by around 20 percent, while the EU-27 has achieved 30.7 percent. However, the Tusk government’s plan has been over a year in the making. “The energy transition is currently taking place without a helmsman,” Joanna Pandera, President of the Energy Forum think tank, told Table.Briefings. “The shifts in the energy sector are not the result of a comprehensive vision of decarbonizing the economy, but the result of market competition and the ingenuity of entrepreneurs and citizens.” However, she believes that the urgently needed changes to the grid and market organization, which the government is responsible for, are lagging behind.
Nevertheless, Poland ranks among the countries currently switching away from coal and towards renewable energy sources the fastest. In 2024, the share of coal in the electricity mix fell to 57.1 percent, while renewables rose to 29.6 percent. Poland generated around 95.5 terawatt hours (TWh) from coal combustion, around five TWh less than one year earlier.
Wind farms alone generated 24.5 TWh of electricity (14.7 percent) – although the PiS government often tried to block the expansion of wind power plants. The figures for photovoltaics are even better: As part of the EU-funded “My Electricity” program, over 1.3 million households have installed solar panels in the past six years. They generated around 12.5 TWh of energy (7.5 percent) – in 2018, this figure was just 0.3 TWh. The supply gap was closed primarily with natural gas plants – their electricity generation rose from ten TWh in 2017 to almost 15 TWh in 2023. Since the war in Ukraine, gas has been pumped through a new pipeline, mainly from Norway.
The government in Warsaw knows that the continued operation of Polish coal-based power and heating plants is slowly becoming uneconomical, as most are very old and inefficient and are breaking down more frequently. According to an industry report, the average age of Poland’s coal and lignite-fired power plants is 37 years.
But politicians face a problem with phasing out coal – coal mining. In 2012, the country still produced almost 80 million tons of hard coal and nearly 65 million tons of lignite. In 2023, hard coal production fell to 49 million tons – the lowest level since 1910. The downward trend continues faster than all government forecasts of the last decade had predicted. More and more coal mines are unprofitable. In August 2024, the extraction cost for one ton of coal was 824 zloty (around €193); on the global market, it is traded for €110.
But the Tusk government, too, shies away from closing mines. It is afraid of the strikes by the 75,000 miners, which have already shaken the country several times in the past. To secure jobs and meet their rising wage demands, Warsaw plans to provide a total of nine billion zlotys (€2.1 billion) in subsidies for coal mining in 2025. However, given the falling demand for coal, Poland cannot afford to operate so many mines. Experts predict that only a few of the most efficient mines will still be in operation in the next five years.
However, the Council on Energy Security and Climate, which includes several renowned economic and energy experts, urges the Tusk government to set 2035 as the date for phasing out coal-fired power generation. Green Deputy Environment Minister Urszula Zielińska, who wants to promote the expansion of wind farms in the Baltic Sea, also supports the call.
The Tusk government is also banking on nuclear energy for the future. Last week, after years of searching for a site, it decided to spend over 60 billion zlotys (€14 billion) on the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino on the Baltic Sea. The contract was awarded to the US consortium Westinghouse-Bechtel. The nuclear power plant will have three reactors of 1,000 megawatts each, the first of which will go into operation in 2035 and will be operated by the state-owned company Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe.
Poland plans to build a second nuclear power plant at a later date, but the site has not yet been chosen. According to a study by the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment, almost 90 percent of the Polish population supports the construction of nuclear power plants – a record in the EU.
According to media reports, at least 65 people were killed in protests in Kenya in 2024, particularly in July and August of that year. This makes 2024 probably the most challenging political year for President William Ruto. The protests were triggered by Ruto’s reform plans as part of the Finance Act. Following fierce protests, Ruto withdrew the law and reshuffled his cabinet. Many government projects came to a standstill and had to be evaluated.
The protesters accused the projects of being cost-intensive and riddled with corruption. However, one topic remained largely unaffected by the protests: Kenya’s green energy transition. The Kenyan government is pushing ahead with its plans, even in times of crisis – although the implementation of the transformation is not without criticism.
Just a few months ago, on October 24, Kenya’s President William Ruto visited Menengai in Nakuru County for the ground-breaking ceremony for the 35-megawatt geothermal power plant. Ruto also attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Kenya Electricity Generation Company and the Kaishan Group, a Chinese compressor manufacturer. The two companies agreed to partner on the production of green ammonia.
In 2024, the then-Minister of Energy and current Minister of Transport Davis Chirchir also announced that the Kenyan government wanted to reduce its annual spending on fossil fuel imports. Most recently, spending amounted to over 7.2 billion US dollars. “We can quickly use our 92 percent of cheap renewable energy from geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind to power our mobility sector and protect the economy from net outflows,” said Chirchir.
However, news broke in November that Ruto, who likes to present himself as Africa’s climate pioneer, would not attend COP29 in Baku. Instead, Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi represented him. But Ruto’s absence was not a policy shift, but a concession to the Kenyan people, who had accused him of going on too many foreign visits. Ruto had made two trips abroad alone in the week before the COP.
As a result, Ruto’s climate policy is also at least indirectly restricted by the protests. Some voices in Kenya accuse Ruto of having his climate policy dictated by the West. Steve Biko Wafula, investment analyst at the Hidalgo Investment Group, wrote on the X news service back in September: “Ruto’s affinity with Climate talk is the proof we need that he isn’t his own man. Climate talk isn’t an African issue. Ruto is being used to curtail the growth of Kenya and Africa in general.”
Nevertheless, critics are far in the minority. According to Waithaka N. Iraki, Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Nairobi, there are several reasons why Kenya’s green transformation is weathering the political storm. Kenya has several decisive advantages thanks to its geological conditions, which include geothermal energy, wind, and hydropower. “The economic openness also made it easy for investors to come to the country,” Iraki adds. With its “Vision 2030” development plan, Kenya also offered investors strategic incentives to focus on green energy early on.
Iraki cites another possible reason as not insignificant: “It is possible that those in power have invested in renewable energies themselves,” he says. The field is lucrative, as renewable energies are likely to be future-proof in the face of global warming and climate change.
The Energy Transition and Investment Plan of the Kenyan Ministry of Energy lists four key decarbonization technologies that are intended to ensure an orderly transition to green energy:
This spring, the Kenyan President will once again have the opportunity to present himself as a climate transition pioneer. Nairobi will once again host the African Climate Summit. And this time, Ruto will not have to travel abroad.
Germany has set itself the goal of achieving net zero by 2045. The role of agriculture in reaching this goal is becoming increasingly important for two reasons:
Over the past 20 years, greenhouse gas emissions in Germany have fallen by around 34 percent overall – yet the reduction in agriculture and peatlands used for agriculture was only around five percent. As a result, the sector’s share of total emissions has risen from less than ten percent to over 14 percent.
Due to the progressive decarbonization of other sectors, it will perspectively rise further. It can be assumed that agriculture will cause a significant proportion of residual emissions in 2045, which will have to be offset by negative emissions in order to achieve net zero – and that costs money. This increases the pressure to reduce agricultural emissions.
Three areas of action are particularly important:
In addition to reducing emissions, political incentives should be created to bind carbon from the air in natural systems such as hedges, trees and soils, but also in materials produced from them, such as building materials, in the long term, thus creating negative emissions. Two fields of action are important here:
In conclusion, it is evident that the significant climate action potential of agriculture has so far been insufficiently translated into tangible economic opportunities for agriculture and rural areas. Here lies a tremendous opportunity for the next federal government.
Harald Grethe is co-director of the think tank Agora Agrar. He has been Professor of International Agricultural Trade and Development at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since 2016. He previously headed the Department of Agricultural and Food Policy at the University of Hohenheim and was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (WBAE) from 2012 to 2020.
