Germany to consider spending more to meet climate goal

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's environment minister said Wednesday that the government is considering additional spending to meet the new climate targets it has set for the coming decade.

Svenja Schulze told public broadcaster ARD that officials agree a program of urgent measures is needed to complement the new goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 65% from 1990 levels by 2030, and of going ‘net zero’ by 2045.

The more ambitions targets were hastily agreed last week after Germany's top court ruled that existing measures placed too much of the burden for curbing global warming on younger people, and ordered the government to lay out a more detailed set of measures for the period from 2030.

A lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc, Andreas Jung, told public radio rbb-Inforadio that a higher price on carbon from next year was one of the options being considered.

The environmentalist Greens party wants the rate at which renewable energy generation is expanded to be doubled. It is also calling for government borrowing rules to be relaxed when it comes to investments in climate measures.