German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed concern at a global renaissance of fossil energy, resulting from a gas shortage caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“No one can be happy with the fact that the share of coal-fired electricity generation is rising, with us as well,’’ Scholz told the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin.
The German government recently approved the use of more coal-fired power plants in light of the drastic reduction of gas from Russia.
“This makes it all the more important that we make completely clear: This is a strictly limited temporary emergency measure that will not be at the expense of our climate targets.’’
Scholz said the same applied to investment in gas infrastructure, such as the new offshore LNG terminals Germany was constructing to import gas.
These had to be in line with the target of becoming carbon neutral in the future, in Germany and the world, he said.
“In concrete terms, this means that we are not creating new long-term dependencies on fossil energy resources not with us and also not in the producing countries,’’ the chancellor said.
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