A clear statement directly from the US president: In the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2”, Joe Biden said. “We will bring an end to it.” Standing next to him at the time was Olaf Scholz. The German chancellor, often criticized these days for lack of clarity, at least said one clear sentence: “We will act in complete agreement on the sanctions.” That can hardly be interpreted any other way: Germany will support a shutdown of Nord Stream 2 if push comes to shove. But Scholz does not want to say it as clearly as Biden.
An end to Meta-services in Europe – this allegedly would not phase Robert Habeck. The Economy and Climate Minister has been living happily without Facebook (and Twitter) for four years, as he said yesterday during his visit to Paris. At the moment, no one believes that the company will make good on its threat and shut down its services like Facebook, Instagram, and others in Europe. The background to this is a decision by the Irish data protection supervisory authority on the transfer of personal data to the USA. The main addressees of the threat may not be in Europe, as Falk Steiner reports, but in the tech giant’s home country.
By mid-century, the European Union aims to become climate neutral. But even after 2050, there will be unavoidable residual emissions that will have to be offset elsewhere to achieve the net-zero target. Most experts agree that the natural sink capacity of forests or wetlands will not be sufficient to achieve this. Accordingly, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the technical separation and storage of CO2, is becoming increasingly important. The EU Commission intends to present a corresponding legal framework by the end of the year. But the technology remains controversial, as Timo Landenberger knows.
Today, the EU Commission will present the European Chips Act. With this, it does not only wants to mobilize billions to give chip production in Europe a powerful boost. The Chips Act also provides for the establishment of a new task force to identify impending supply bottlenecks at an early stage. In the event of a crisis, the Commission is to be given far-reaching rights to intervene, including export controls. Criticism is now mounting. Read more about this in the News.
Deep in the notes on potential business risks, the group has stated in the mandatory disclosures in the 10-K form that it expects an important decision from the Irish data protection supervisory authority DPC in the first half of 2022. This is expected to rule within the next few months on whether Facebook’s transfer of personal data to the US is currently lawful or whether it is in breach of the GDPR.
Meta has so far relied on so-called standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for this purpose. In its assessment, the group has thereby highlighted an option that is highly relevant for investors and users alike: “If a new transatlantic data protection framework is not achieved and we cannot continue to rely on SCCs or alternative means of transmission, we will probably not be able to offer some of our most important products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”
If this scenario were to occur, the business would be affected accordingly, which would hit Meta twice as hard. Recently, investors had punished the group with massive share price losses for poor user development figures.
And the chances for the company are not likely to be particularly good – even if the Irish authority has often been said to be particularly business-friendly in the past, its leeway here is very small. “In June 2021, the European Commission published such standard data protection clauses for the transfer of personal data to third countries in accordance with the GDPR, which also implement some of the demands we had already expressed in advance,” says Stefan Brink, State Commissioner for Data Protection in Baden-Württemberg.
With the Schrems II decision, the European Court of Justice has set high requirements for guarantees that controllers and processors must provide. “Specifically with regard to transparency, official disclosure requests, data subject rights, and legal protection options, SCCs are often unable to meet the requirements in a satisfactory manner,” Brink said when asked by Europe.Table. “This is also because there is a lack of concrete, clear information about data transfers.”
Its assessment of the legal situation is clear: “Unless and until the required level of protection is achievable and cannot be established through additional measures, SCCs cannot form the basis for third-country transfers.”
That Facebook and Instagram are pulling the plug on the EU hardly seems conceivable in view of around $20 billion in sales in Europe – and thus the second-largest market after the US. Among the group’s harsh critics is MEP Patrick Breyer (Pirates/EFA). He suspects that the Facebook company is primarily seeking to exert political pressure on the EU Commission and, in particular, Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
“It is to be feared that the Commission will buckle under the industry’s threats, although such an agreement would possibly fail again in the courts in view of the NSA surveillance mania revealed by Snowden.” While he thinks it’s impossible that the company will make good on its threat, he wouldn’t be sad about it either, Breyer said: “Incidentally, a withdrawal of the surveillance juggernaut from Europe would be welcome, because it would finally give better competitors a real chance.”
Rebekka Weiß, Head of Trust and Security at the IT association Bitkom, takes a completely different view: “Data transfer between the EU and the USA is essential – for global corporations as well as for many thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises.
So for Bitkom, it’s by no means just about meta-services. A political solution must be found because the situation is becoming increasingly acute. “International cooperation and communication depend, among other things, on companies regaining the legal certainty that existed in the past with the Privacy Shield,” says Weiß.
She sees the EU Commission as having a duty: It must “urgently conclude a new, legally secure agreement with its US partners. In doing so, the German government must also exert pressure on the EU to speed up the process. “It is imperative that the current negotiations be intensified, and both negotiating partners must accommodate each other in order to prevent the breaking points of data transfers from becoming even larger.”
An EU Commission spokeswoman said negotiations between Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would continue: “Only an agreement that would be fully compliant with the European Court of Justice can provide the stability and legal certainty that stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic expect.”
France’s Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Germany’s Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck see no problem with a possible end to Facebook. Habeck said during his visit to Paris that he has been living happily without Facebook and Twitter for four years. “For me personally, it’s not a threat I’m afraid of,” Habeck said. Europe is such a large single market “that we’re not going to be impressed by something like this now”.
Le Maire also confirmed that one could “live very well” without Facebook. Such large corporations are not used to being resisted. “We don’t want our personal data to be left to the digital giants without any control,” the French Economy Minister said.
Meanwhile, the meta-announcement could also be read in a completely different way: From the ECJ’s point of view, the main problem for a new EU-US Privacy Shield lies in US law, which would not offer a comparable level of protection to the GDPR with regard to access by intelligence services and law enforcement. With its threat, the Facebook parent company could therefore also mean the White House and Congress must finally make an effort to find a permanent solution.
The fact that an adjustment of the legal requirements in the US exceeds the competencies of the EU Commission is likely to be an exception to the transatlantic consensus among all players. However, even in the event of a shutdown, Meta would have to collect a critical piece of data from a European point of view: The company would have to check whether or not users are located within the EU every time they access its services. Whether there is a sufficient legal basis for this would then have to be checked by the data protection supervisory authorities.
Norway is leading the way: About 100 kilometers off the west coast and around 2,600 meters below the seabed, Europe’s largest CO2 landfill is currently being built. From 2024, 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year are to be stored there; in the future, capacity could be expanded to up to five million, depending on demand, say the operating companies. “Northern Lights” is the name of the project by energy companies Equinor, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total, which is being funded by the Norwegian government and is intended to provide storage space for energy-intensive industries throughout Europe.
The technology is called carbon capture and storage (CCS). “We have 30 years of experience with carbon capture and storage. It’s a solid technology that works well,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said during a recent visit to Berlin. Now, the task is to build a value chain together with the EU industry.
The offer from the Scandinavian country is particularly tempting for the energy-intensive steel and cement sectors. After all, the method has hardly attracted any attention in Brussels so far. However, this is now set to change. Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the EU Commission and responsible for implementing the Green Deal: “Carbon capture and storage will be essential if we are to achieve climate neutrality. It is an important tool in our toolbox.”
By the end of 2022, the Commission, therefore, intends to propose a legal framework for the certification of CO2 removal, which should include transparent rules for crediting as well as requirements for monitoring and verifying carbon dioxide removal. In addition to promoting climate-friendly agriculture, this is also to address industrial solutions for CO2 capture.
“This is a complicated undertaking that will require targeted funding in the coming years,” Timmermans said. It’s not a matter of relying on new technologies to solve all problems. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains a priority. However, investing in innovative ideas has often led to positive results.
To enable large-scale CO2 removal, the Commission wants to contribute to the development of an internal market for the capture, use, and storage of CO2 and the provision of the necessary cross-border CO2 transport infrastructure. The goal: By 2030, five million tons of CO2 should be removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored with the help of technical solutions. In the short term, the innovation fund financed from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will be the main financing instrument for these technologies.
In 2025, the European Union aims to be climate neutral. But even beyond that, there will be emissions that are impossible or very difficult to avoid. These so-called residual emissions arise, for example, in agriculture or in the transport sector and must be offset elsewhere. After all, the declared goal is net-zero.
The fact that negative CO2 emissions are required for this is therefore not a new insight. For a long time, however, it was assumed in climate policy that natural sinks, together with measures for reforestation or the rewetting of peatlands, would be sufficient to filter sufficient greenhouse gases from the air.
“There has been a significant change in perception here. We need technological solutions for CO2 extraction and subsequent geological storage, all relevant studies have shown that,” says Felix Schenuit of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also points to the importance of CCS. Otherwise, the 1.5-degree target would hardly be achievable.
Nevertheless, the instrument remains controversial. Critics fear that CO2 removal will serve primarily as an argument for energy companies to continue to rely on fossil fuels and later to greenwash their balance sheets. Georg Kobiela of the environmental organization Germanwatch demands: “No CCS for fossil power plants. We have to focus on applications for which there is no sensible alternative.”
Especially since the direct air capture (DAC) process, i.e., the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is still in its infancy. Worldwide, only a few companies are developing corresponding methods because the process is too expensive. The cost of capturing one ton of CO2 from the atmosphere is many times higher than the price of CO2 under the emissions trading scheme, although the latter has reached record levels in recent weeks and currently stands at over €95.
In addition, the process is very energy-intensive, and not enough renewables will be available in the foreseeable future. “At present, we should be using renewables to shut down fossil fuel power plants instead of using them to reduce the extremely low CO2 concentration of 0.4 percent in the atmosphere,” Kobiela said.
The DAC process must be distinguished from CO2 capture along highly concentrated carbon dioxide streams in industrial processes that cannot be decarbonized or can only be decarbonized with great difficulty. For example, in cement production. The use of CCS technologies is considerably more efficient here and therefore justifiable, Kobiela said. Provided the companies present a roadmap for achieving climate neutrality. Reducing emissions must be a priority.
The building materials group Heidelberg Cement also says it is focusing on reducing carbon emissions. “However, we are faced with the challenge in the cement industry that around two-thirds of direct emissions are generated during the calcination of limestone into cement clinker during the burning process in the cement kiln. These emissions have so far been technologically unavoidable,” a group spokeswoman said.
Therefore, carbon capture is a necessary prerequisite for achieving climate neutrality for the sector. Developing a CO2 transport infrastructure linking emission sources with storage facilities is also of great importance, as is the acceleration of approval and planning procedures. Heidelberg Cement is one of the first partners in the Norwegian Northern Lights project.
In German climate and industrial policy, however, the use of CCS technologies continues to be regarded as a red rag, and it is best not to talk about it at all. Holger Lösch, Deputy Managing Director of the Federation of German Industries, demands: “If Germany is serious about its climate policy goals, politicians and society must rethink. For climate neutrality to become a reality in Germany, solutions for dealing with unavoidable emissions from basic industries are needed as quickly as possible.”
In fact, the German government’s coalition agreement states: “We are committed to the need for technical negative emissions as well and will develop a long-term strategy for dealing with the approximately five percent of unavoidable residual emissions.” In response to a question, the Federal Ministry of Economics said that implementation would now be discussed step by step. Details could not be given at the present time.
For example, the storage of CO2 in Germany will remain prohibited for the time being. The Carbon Dioxide Storage Act effectively banned the underground injection of gas in Germany years ago. Geologist Franz May of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) attests to the country’s great potential.
According to the study, depleted natural gas reservoirs and saltwater-bearing porous rocks at depths of more than 800 meters below impermeable and undisturbed surface layers are worthy of investigation. Extensive information is already available on depleted natural gas reservoirs in particular. According to May, the capacity in Germany’s largest deposits would correspond to a total mass of around two billion tons of CO2.
When Manfred Fischedick talks about climate protection, he means a transformation toward a sustainable and climate-friendly society. Fischedick has been the scientific director of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy since 2020. He has already been working there since 1993. Unlike the classic research institution, the Wuppertal Institute is impact-oriented. “We want to make a difference with our science,” says Fischedick.
The institute works across disciplines. “That was quite a big deal for me at the beginning, as someone who studied engineering,” Fischedick recalls. Now, he seems made for the transdisciplinary approach. Today, Fischedick is not only an energy and climate researcher but also an adjunct professor of economics at the Schumpeter School in Wuppertal.
Fischedick says that the Wuppertal Institute’s absolute independence is also a key factor. “We do studies for Fridays for Future just as we do for companies in the energy industry or various ministries.” The climate movement regularly refers to the Wuppertal Institute study commissioned by Fridays for Future when criticizing policy makers. They did so as well a few hours after the coalition agreement of the traffic light parties was published, citing a failure to meet the 1.5-degree target even before taking office.
Fischedick is one of the authors of the aforementioned study. His assessment of the coalition agreement is tamer. “It is true that Fridays for Future says ‘This is not 1.5-degree compatible’. But before you get lost in a target-setting discussion again, the focus should be on implementation first.” The treaty outlines the right strategies for most sectors, Fischedick said. The addition rates of photovoltaic systems are expected to triple compared to recent years, while wind energy is expected to nearly quadruple.
However, one should not focus too much on one strategy and neglect others. “In the coalition agreement, the word hydrogen appears 28 times and the word energy efficiency only twice.” That already expresses an imbalance, Fischedick says. For climate protection, we need all the resources available.
At the European level, Fischedick sees the EU’s great strength in implementation. With Fit for 55, not only targets but also the corresponding measures have been defined. “However, if you look at what’s happening in China, for example, in terms of increasing efficiency, and what goals are planned in the US, then you have to say: The EU is not alone in this.” Moreover, member states are often not moving in the same direction – arguably the biggest obstacle to European climate policy.
Cooperation between politics and the Wuppertal Institute was not always as harmonious as it is today. In the 1990s, the institute often caused trouble with politicians and industry. Critical voices from the institute on opencast lignite mining did not go down well at all with the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economics. Fischedick recounts how he had just returned from vacation and read in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger “Minister of Economics condemns Wuppertal Institute pamphlet”.
Meanwhile, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia regularly seeks scientific advice from the Wuppertal Institute. Among other things, the institute moderated the conception of the state’s climate protection plan from 2014 to 2019. And Fischedick, who used to go on anti-nuclear protests in his student days, is now considered a renowned climate expert nationwide.
The rapprochement between politics, the Wuppertal Institute, and its scientific director are characterized by the growing social awareness of climate change. Or, in other words: by the beginning of a societal transformation. David Zauner
A clear statement directly from the US president: In the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2”, Joe Biden said. “We will bring an end to it.” Standing next to him at the time was Olaf Scholz. The German chancellor, often criticized these days for lack of clarity, at least said one clear sentence: “We will act in complete agreement on the sanctions.” That can hardly be interpreted any other way: Germany will support a shutdown of Nord Stream 2 if push comes to shove. But Scholz does not want to say it as clearly as Biden.
An end to Meta-services in Europe – this allegedly would not phase Robert Habeck. The Economy and Climate Minister has been living happily without Facebook (and Twitter) for four years, as he said yesterday during his visit to Paris. At the moment, no one believes that the company will make good on its threat and shut down its services like Facebook, Instagram, and others in Europe. The background to this is a decision by the Irish data protection supervisory authority on the transfer of personal data to the USA. The main addressees of the threat may not be in Europe, as Falk Steiner reports, but in the tech giant’s home country.
By mid-century, the European Union aims to become climate neutral. But even after 2050, there will be unavoidable residual emissions that will have to be offset elsewhere to achieve the net-zero target. Most experts agree that the natural sink capacity of forests or wetlands will not be sufficient to achieve this. Accordingly, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the technical separation and storage of CO2, is becoming increasingly important. The EU Commission intends to present a corresponding legal framework by the end of the year. But the technology remains controversial, as Timo Landenberger knows.
Today, the EU Commission will present the European Chips Act. With this, it does not only wants to mobilize billions to give chip production in Europe a powerful boost. The Chips Act also provides for the establishment of a new task force to identify impending supply bottlenecks at an early stage. In the event of a crisis, the Commission is to be given far-reaching rights to intervene, including export controls. Criticism is now mounting. Read more about this in the News.
Deep in the notes on potential business risks, the group has stated in the mandatory disclosures in the 10-K form that it expects an important decision from the Irish data protection supervisory authority DPC in the first half of 2022. This is expected to rule within the next few months on whether Facebook’s transfer of personal data to the US is currently lawful or whether it is in breach of the GDPR.
Meta has so far relied on so-called standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for this purpose. In its assessment, the group has thereby highlighted an option that is highly relevant for investors and users alike: “If a new transatlantic data protection framework is not achieved and we cannot continue to rely on SCCs or alternative means of transmission, we will probably not be able to offer some of our most important products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”
If this scenario were to occur, the business would be affected accordingly, which would hit Meta twice as hard. Recently, investors had punished the group with massive share price losses for poor user development figures.
And the chances for the company are not likely to be particularly good – even if the Irish authority has often been said to be particularly business-friendly in the past, its leeway here is very small. “In June 2021, the European Commission published such standard data protection clauses for the transfer of personal data to third countries in accordance with the GDPR, which also implement some of the demands we had already expressed in advance,” says Stefan Brink, State Commissioner for Data Protection in Baden-Württemberg.
With the Schrems II decision, the European Court of Justice has set high requirements for guarantees that controllers and processors must provide. “Specifically with regard to transparency, official disclosure requests, data subject rights, and legal protection options, SCCs are often unable to meet the requirements in a satisfactory manner,” Brink said when asked by Europe.Table. “This is also because there is a lack of concrete, clear information about data transfers.”
Its assessment of the legal situation is clear: “Unless and until the required level of protection is achievable and cannot be established through additional measures, SCCs cannot form the basis for third-country transfers.”
That Facebook and Instagram are pulling the plug on the EU hardly seems conceivable in view of around $20 billion in sales in Europe – and thus the second-largest market after the US. Among the group’s harsh critics is MEP Patrick Breyer (Pirates/EFA). He suspects that the Facebook company is primarily seeking to exert political pressure on the EU Commission and, in particular, Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
“It is to be feared that the Commission will buckle under the industry’s threats, although such an agreement would possibly fail again in the courts in view of the NSA surveillance mania revealed by Snowden.” While he thinks it’s impossible that the company will make good on its threat, he wouldn’t be sad about it either, Breyer said: “Incidentally, a withdrawal of the surveillance juggernaut from Europe would be welcome, because it would finally give better competitors a real chance.”
Rebekka Weiß, Head of Trust and Security at the IT association Bitkom, takes a completely different view: “Data transfer between the EU and the USA is essential – for global corporations as well as for many thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises.
So for Bitkom, it’s by no means just about meta-services. A political solution must be found because the situation is becoming increasingly acute. “International cooperation and communication depend, among other things, on companies regaining the legal certainty that existed in the past with the Privacy Shield,” says Weiß.
She sees the EU Commission as having a duty: It must “urgently conclude a new, legally secure agreement with its US partners. In doing so, the German government must also exert pressure on the EU to speed up the process. “It is imperative that the current negotiations be intensified, and both negotiating partners must accommodate each other in order to prevent the breaking points of data transfers from becoming even larger.”
An EU Commission spokeswoman said negotiations between Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would continue: “Only an agreement that would be fully compliant with the European Court of Justice can provide the stability and legal certainty that stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic expect.”
France’s Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Germany’s Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck see no problem with a possible end to Facebook. Habeck said during his visit to Paris that he has been living happily without Facebook and Twitter for four years. “For me personally, it’s not a threat I’m afraid of,” Habeck said. Europe is such a large single market “that we’re not going to be impressed by something like this now”.
Le Maire also confirmed that one could “live very well” without Facebook. Such large corporations are not used to being resisted. “We don’t want our personal data to be left to the digital giants without any control,” the French Economy Minister said.
Meanwhile, the meta-announcement could also be read in a completely different way: From the ECJ’s point of view, the main problem for a new EU-US Privacy Shield lies in US law, which would not offer a comparable level of protection to the GDPR with regard to access by intelligence services and law enforcement. With its threat, the Facebook parent company could therefore also mean the White House and Congress must finally make an effort to find a permanent solution.
The fact that an adjustment of the legal requirements in the US exceeds the competencies of the EU Commission is likely to be an exception to the transatlantic consensus among all players. However, even in the event of a shutdown, Meta would have to collect a critical piece of data from a European point of view: The company would have to check whether or not users are located within the EU every time they access its services. Whether there is a sufficient legal basis for this would then have to be checked by the data protection supervisory authorities.
Norway is leading the way: About 100 kilometers off the west coast and around 2,600 meters below the seabed, Europe’s largest CO2 landfill is currently being built. From 2024, 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year are to be stored there; in the future, capacity could be expanded to up to five million, depending on demand, say the operating companies. “Northern Lights” is the name of the project by energy companies Equinor, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total, which is being funded by the Norwegian government and is intended to provide storage space for energy-intensive industries throughout Europe.
The technology is called carbon capture and storage (CCS). “We have 30 years of experience with carbon capture and storage. It’s a solid technology that works well,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said during a recent visit to Berlin. Now, the task is to build a value chain together with the EU industry.
The offer from the Scandinavian country is particularly tempting for the energy-intensive steel and cement sectors. After all, the method has hardly attracted any attention in Brussels so far. However, this is now set to change. Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the EU Commission and responsible for implementing the Green Deal: “Carbon capture and storage will be essential if we are to achieve climate neutrality. It is an important tool in our toolbox.”
By the end of 2022, the Commission, therefore, intends to propose a legal framework for the certification of CO2 removal, which should include transparent rules for crediting as well as requirements for monitoring and verifying carbon dioxide removal. In addition to promoting climate-friendly agriculture, this is also to address industrial solutions for CO2 capture.
“This is a complicated undertaking that will require targeted funding in the coming years,” Timmermans said. It’s not a matter of relying on new technologies to solve all problems. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains a priority. However, investing in innovative ideas has often led to positive results.
To enable large-scale CO2 removal, the Commission wants to contribute to the development of an internal market for the capture, use, and storage of CO2 and the provision of the necessary cross-border CO2 transport infrastructure. The goal: By 2030, five million tons of CO2 should be removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored with the help of technical solutions. In the short term, the innovation fund financed from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will be the main financing instrument for these technologies.
In 2025, the European Union aims to be climate neutral. But even beyond that, there will be emissions that are impossible or very difficult to avoid. These so-called residual emissions arise, for example, in agriculture or in the transport sector and must be offset elsewhere. After all, the declared goal is net-zero.
The fact that negative CO2 emissions are required for this is therefore not a new insight. For a long time, however, it was assumed in climate policy that natural sinks, together with measures for reforestation or the rewetting of peatlands, would be sufficient to filter sufficient greenhouse gases from the air.
“There has been a significant change in perception here. We need technological solutions for CO2 extraction and subsequent geological storage, all relevant studies have shown that,” says Felix Schenuit of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also points to the importance of CCS. Otherwise, the 1.5-degree target would hardly be achievable.
Nevertheless, the instrument remains controversial. Critics fear that CO2 removal will serve primarily as an argument for energy companies to continue to rely on fossil fuels and later to greenwash their balance sheets. Georg Kobiela of the environmental organization Germanwatch demands: “No CCS for fossil power plants. We have to focus on applications for which there is no sensible alternative.”
Especially since the direct air capture (DAC) process, i.e., the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is still in its infancy. Worldwide, only a few companies are developing corresponding methods because the process is too expensive. The cost of capturing one ton of CO2 from the atmosphere is many times higher than the price of CO2 under the emissions trading scheme, although the latter has reached record levels in recent weeks and currently stands at over €95.
In addition, the process is very energy-intensive, and not enough renewables will be available in the foreseeable future. “At present, we should be using renewables to shut down fossil fuel power plants instead of using them to reduce the extremely low CO2 concentration of 0.4 percent in the atmosphere,” Kobiela said.
The DAC process must be distinguished from CO2 capture along highly concentrated carbon dioxide streams in industrial processes that cannot be decarbonized or can only be decarbonized with great difficulty. For example, in cement production. The use of CCS technologies is considerably more efficient here and therefore justifiable, Kobiela said. Provided the companies present a roadmap for achieving climate neutrality. Reducing emissions must be a priority.
The building materials group Heidelberg Cement also says it is focusing on reducing carbon emissions. “However, we are faced with the challenge in the cement industry that around two-thirds of direct emissions are generated during the calcination of limestone into cement clinker during the burning process in the cement kiln. These emissions have so far been technologically unavoidable,” a group spokeswoman said.
Therefore, carbon capture is a necessary prerequisite for achieving climate neutrality for the sector. Developing a CO2 transport infrastructure linking emission sources with storage facilities is also of great importance, as is the acceleration of approval and planning procedures. Heidelberg Cement is one of the first partners in the Norwegian Northern Lights project.
In German climate and industrial policy, however, the use of CCS technologies continues to be regarded as a red rag, and it is best not to talk about it at all. Holger Lösch, Deputy Managing Director of the Federation of German Industries, demands: “If Germany is serious about its climate policy goals, politicians and society must rethink. For climate neutrality to become a reality in Germany, solutions for dealing with unavoidable emissions from basic industries are needed as quickly as possible.”
In fact, the German government’s coalition agreement states: “We are committed to the need for technical negative emissions as well and will develop a long-term strategy for dealing with the approximately five percent of unavoidable residual emissions.” In response to a question, the Federal Ministry of Economics said that implementation would now be discussed step by step. Details could not be given at the present time.
For example, the storage of CO2 in Germany will remain prohibited for the time being. The Carbon Dioxide Storage Act effectively banned the underground injection of gas in Germany years ago. Geologist Franz May of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) attests to the country’s great potential.
According to the study, depleted natural gas reservoirs and saltwater-bearing porous rocks at depths of more than 800 meters below impermeable and undisturbed surface layers are worthy of investigation. Extensive information is already available on depleted natural gas reservoirs in particular. According to May, the capacity in Germany’s largest deposits would correspond to a total mass of around two billion tons of CO2.
When Manfred Fischedick talks about climate protection, he means a transformation toward a sustainable and climate-friendly society. Fischedick has been the scientific director of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy since 2020. He has already been working there since 1993. Unlike the classic research institution, the Wuppertal Institute is impact-oriented. “We want to make a difference with our science,” says Fischedick.
The institute works across disciplines. “That was quite a big deal for me at the beginning, as someone who studied engineering,” Fischedick recalls. Now, he seems made for the transdisciplinary approach. Today, Fischedick is not only an energy and climate researcher but also an adjunct professor of economics at the Schumpeter School in Wuppertal.
Fischedick says that the Wuppertal Institute’s absolute independence is also a key factor. “We do studies for Fridays for Future just as we do for companies in the energy industry or various ministries.” The climate movement regularly refers to the Wuppertal Institute study commissioned by Fridays for Future when criticizing policy makers. They did so as well a few hours after the coalition agreement of the traffic light parties was published, citing a failure to meet the 1.5-degree target even before taking office.
Fischedick is one of the authors of the aforementioned study. His assessment of the coalition agreement is tamer. “It is true that Fridays for Future says ‘This is not 1.5-degree compatible’. But before you get lost in a target-setting discussion again, the focus should be on implementation first.” The treaty outlines the right strategies for most sectors, Fischedick said. The addition rates of photovoltaic systems are expected to triple compared to recent years, while wind energy is expected to nearly quadruple.
However, one should not focus too much on one strategy and neglect others. “In the coalition agreement, the word hydrogen appears 28 times and the word energy efficiency only twice.” That already expresses an imbalance, Fischedick says. For climate protection, we need all the resources available.
At the European level, Fischedick sees the EU’s great strength in implementation. With Fit for 55, not only targets but also the corresponding measures have been defined. “However, if you look at what’s happening in China, for example, in terms of increasing efficiency, and what goals are planned in the US, then you have to say: The EU is not alone in this.” Moreover, member states are often not moving in the same direction – arguably the biggest obstacle to European climate policy.
Cooperation between politics and the Wuppertal Institute was not always as harmonious as it is today. In the 1990s, the institute often caused trouble with politicians and industry. Critical voices from the institute on opencast lignite mining did not go down well at all with the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economics. Fischedick recounts how he had just returned from vacation and read in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger “Minister of Economics condemns Wuppertal Institute pamphlet”.
Meanwhile, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia regularly seeks scientific advice from the Wuppertal Institute. Among other things, the institute moderated the conception of the state’s climate protection plan from 2014 to 2019. And Fischedick, who used to go on anti-nuclear protests in his student days, is now considered a renowned climate expert nationwide.
The rapprochement between politics, the Wuppertal Institute, and its scientific director are characterized by the growing social awareness of climate change. Or, in other words: by the beginning of a societal transformation. David Zauner
