Due to a drop in fossil fuel use and high temperatures, Germany’s emissions of greenhouse gases dropped 4.5 percent to 865.6 million tonnes last year, according to estimates by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA).

“2018 was a special year for climate policy,” environment minister Svenja Schulze said at a press conference. Climate change had become “clearly palpable” during last year’s heat waves and drought, but the data showed that climate action does make a difference, Schulze said, pointing to policies like the expansion of renewable energy, the closure of some coal power plants, and the reform of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

“Still, we have to do a lot more in the coming years,” Schulze said. She added the figures should add momentum to government efforts to step up the fight against climate change with a much-anticipated Climate Action Law this year.

After initially published figures on 2 April showed a 4.2 percent emission reduction in 2018, the UBA corrected its calculations two days later, saying it had miscalculated emissions in the agriculture sector which had fallen by 4.1 percent leading to an overall larger decrease in the country's greenhouse gases.

German emissions have largely stagnated for the past ten years. Though the country has achieved a remarkable increase in renewable power generation as part of its landmark energy transition (Energiewende), its track record on cutting climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions is mixed. One major reason is continued coal-fired power production. But the country is now eyeing a coal phase-out by 2038 at the very latest, and gross renewable electricity generation almost caught up with combined lignite (soft or brown coal) and hard coal power production last year.

Looking just at net public power produced for public supply - excluding the amount of power the generating facilities (auxiliary services) use themselves to operate, or the power produced and consumed by German industry, without being fed into the public grid – renewables fare even better and have already overtaken coal.