Climate targets, energy choices, her position
Debates about Katherina Reiche and the climate often mix three different things: the targets set in law, the energy-policy decisions that determine whether those targets are met, and her own views. This page keeps them apart. Since May 2025 climate protection has formally belonged to another ministry; the energy choices that drive emissions remain hers.
Where emissions stand
Germany's greenhouse-gas emissions stopped falling in 2025. On current policies the 2030 target will be missed narrowly.
Emissions in 2024: −3.4% on 2023 and −48.2% against 1990.
UBA, 2025Emissions in 2025: roughly −0.1% on 2024, about −48% against 1990.
UBA, March 2026Increase in building-sector emissions in 2025.
UBA, March 2026Projected shortfall against the 2030 target: −62.6% instead of −65%.
UBA projections 2026Reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions against 1990, scale 0–100%. Sources: Umweltbundesamt (emissions 2024, 2025 and projections 2026); Climate Protection Act 2021 (targets).
The targets in law
Verified fact Germany's Climate Protection Act (Klimaschutzgesetz, KSG), in its 2021 version, requires greenhouse-gas emissions to fall by 65 per cent by 2030 and 88 per cent by 2040, compared with 1990, and the country to be climate-neutral by 2045.
Verified fact At EU level the European Climate Law sets a cut in net emissions of at least 55 per cent by 2030 against 1990 and net zero by 2050. The "Fit for 55" package revised the EU's policy instruments to reach the 2030 goal. On 9–10 December 2025 the Council and Parliament provisionally agreed a 2040 target of −90 per cent net. Up to five percentage points may come from international credits from 2036, and the second emissions trading system for buildings and transport (ETS2) was delayed to 2028.
- Germany 2030
- −65% (KSG)
- Germany 2040
- −88% (KSG)
- Germany
- Climate neutrality by 2045
- EU 2030
- At least −55% net (European Climate Law; Fit for 55)
- EU 2040
- −90% net, provisional agreement Dec 2025
- EU 2050
- Net zero
The Chancellor's organisational decree of 6 May 2025 moved climate protection and climate partnerships from the economics ministry to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), led by the SPD. Reiche's ministry dropped "Climate Action" from its name. Climate targets and climate programmes are therefore no longer her file – but the energy, building and industrial policies in Layer B, which largely determine whether the targets are met, are.
The levers that move emissions
Each of these decisions was taken or shaped by Reiche's ministry. Each has a climate effect, and each is contested.
Renewables
Verified fact The 80 per cent renewables target for gross electricity consumption in 2030 was kept after the 2025 monitoring report and confirmed in the EEG 2027 draft. The draft ends fixed feed-in tariffs for new small rooftop systems from 2027 and limits curtailment compensation in congested areas. Renewables provided about 55 per cent of gross consumption in 2025.
Gas
Verified fact 12 GW of new controllable capacity, mostly gas plants that must be hydrogen-ready and decarbonised by 2045 at the latest (capacity law, July 2026). The cabinet also backed gas production off Borkum. In 2026 she pushed to loosen implementation of the EU methane regulation, drawing a rebuke from Environment Minister Schneider (SPD).
CCS
Verified fact The amended Carbon Dioxide Storage Act took effect on 28 November 2025, allowing offshore CO₂ storage for industries with unavoidable process emissions such as cement and lime.
Phase-outs
Verified fact Nuclear power ended on 15 April 2023. Coal power must end by 2038 at the latest under the 2020 Coal Phase-out Act.
Heating law: from GEG to Gebäudemodernisierungsgesetz
Verified fact Drafted with Building Minister Verena Hubertz (SPD) and adopted by the cabinet on 13 May 2026, the Building Modernisation Act abolishes the requirement that new heating systems run on 65 per cent renewable energy and restores free choice of system. In its place a "Biotreppe" requires a rising share of climate-friendly fuels: at least 10 per cent in 2029, 15 per cent in 2030, 30 per cent in 2035 and 60 per cent in 2040. It passed the Bundestag and Bundesrat on 10 July 2026 and took effect in parts from 29 July 2026. The ministries' joint press release described the aim as making climate protection practical for everyday life, with "less ideology, more pragmatism" (paraphrase; wording from a search excerpt).
Criticism Deutsche Umwelthilfe called the law "klimapolitisch katastrophal". The chair of the National Regulatory Control Council, Lutz Goebel, called it one of the "handwerklich schwächsten und praxisfernsten Vorhaben" it had seen in years. The Bundestag's research service raised doubts about its constitutionality and compliance with EU law. Building-sector emissions rose by 3.4 Mt in 2025.
| Decision | Date | Stated aim | Climate concern raised by critics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring report: 600–700 TWh demand | Sep 2025 | Avoid over-building and over-paying | Underestimates future demand (DUH) |
| CCS law | Nov 2025 | Abate unavoidable process emissions | No major criticism documented here; storage only offshore, outside protected areas |
| Heating law (GModG) | Jul 2026 | Technology openness, affordability | "Klimapolitisch katastrophal" (DUH) |
| Capacity law (12 GW) | Jul 2026 | Security of supply in low-wind periods | Favours gas over storage (Federal Cartel Office on sites and gas; EnBW reports) |
| EEG 2027 draft | Before parliament | Market integration, lower system costs | Slump in rooftop solar (BSW-Solar, solar industry) |
Affordability first, targets retained
Political position Her clearest statement of priorities came at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston in March 2026, speaking in English:
"We concentrated on climate protection, we underestimated affordability – that was a mistake that we are going to correct."
Nuclear power
In May 2025, days after taking office, she ruled out a return to conventional nuclear power. In Clean Energy Wire's English rendering she said the phase-out had been completed and a return would require "not only money, but also the trust of the companies". At CERAWeek in March 2026 she went further in her assessment of the past:
"The phaseout of nuclear was a huge mistake, a huge mistake and we miss this energy."
In an NZZ interview published in August 2026 she called the exit "eine schwere Fehlentscheidung" (a grave wrong decision).
Analysis The statements judge a past decision; none of them, as documented, announces a policy of reversal. They also sit uneasily with her own record: as a parliamentary state secretary she voted for the 2022 phase-out in the Bundestag's roll-call vote of 30 June 2011, after voting for lifetime extensions in 2010.
Targets and costs
She has kept the 80 per cent renewables target for 2030 and has not proposed changing the KSG targets, which are no longer in her portfolio. At CERAWeek she questioned "100-percent solutions" for the EU's 2050 neutrality goal (as reported by Der Spiegel).
Her policy instruments consistently put cost first: lower expected demand in the monitoring report, the end of fixed feed-in tariffs, cheaper back-up from gas plants, CCS for industry and freedom of choice in heating.
Analysis Her approach rests on a political argument as much as a technical one: that public consent to climate policy depends on its cost, and that cheaper energy will in the end sustain the transition. Critics dispute that her choices – more gas, fewer incentives for rooftop solar, weaker heating rules – are consistent with the legal 2030 and 2045 targets. The UBA projection of a 2030 shortfall gives that dispute a measurable test.
Critics and supporters
Responses to her energy and climate choices divide largely along the line between environmental and industry organisations – with exceptions.
Criticism
Deutsche Umwelthilfe: warned in 2025 that the monitoring report would underestimate demand; called the heating-law reform "klimapolitisch katastrophal" and the Borkum agreement contrary to EU law.
Greenpeace: alleged in December 2025 that 28 changes were made between the experts' draft and the published monitoring report, which it described as substantive interventions.
The Greens: Sven Giegold said she had called renewables expansion "completely overblown"; Michael Kellner called the grid package "a favour for E.ON".
Renewables industry: BSW-Solar said ending rooftop support "würde die Klimaziele gefährden"; the solar industry warns of a "massiver Einbruch"; WindEurope criticised the monitoring report.
Support
BDI (industry federation): called the monitoring report a "notwendige, vorbehaltlose Bestandsaufnahme" – a necessary, unreserved stock-take.
BDEW (energy industry): called it "ein überzeugender Aufschlag" – a convincing start.
BEE (renewables federation): described the analysis as "intensive, stimmige und substanzielle".
Business at her appointment: BDI, BDEW, BEE and the economist Veronika Grimm welcomed her nomination in 2025.
- Umweltbundesamt — Greenhouse-gas emissions in Germany
- Umweltbundesamt — Emissions 2025 and projections 2026 (PDF)
- Federal Government — Climate Protection Act 2021
- European Commission — European Climate Law and Fit for 55
- ESG Today — EU 2040 target agreement
- Organisationserlass des Bundeskanzlers, 6 May 2025
- pv magazine — Monitoring report
- pv magazine — Capacity law passed
- Federal Government — CO₂ storage law
- bpb — Nuclear phase-out
- ZfK — Coal phase-out
- zdfheute — Heating law in cabinet
- BMWE/BMWSB — Joint press release, 13 May 2026
- zdfheute — Normenkontrollrat criticism
- pv magazine — Bundestag passes the GModG
- pv magazine — GModG in force from 29 July
- World Nuclear News — CERAWeek remarks, March 2026
- Clean Energy Wire — No return to conventional nuclear, May 2025
- NZZ — "Das war eine schwere Fehlentscheidung"
- Der Spiegel — 2011 nuclear vote (via de.wikipedia)
- Wikipedia (de) — citations for Spiegel (CERAWeek, methane regulation) and BDI
- Clean Energy Wire — Critics of the reality check
- taz — Greenpeace on the report changes
- ZfK — Reactions to rooftop solar plans
- WindEurope — Reaction to the monitoring report
- BDEW — Reaction to the monitoring report
- Clean Energy Wire — Reactions to her appointment