Several years of drought “turned” Germany's forests into a source of carbon emissions. According to data from the German Environment Agency (UBA), in 2025 Germany's forests once again became carbon sinks. Drought, bark beetle infestations, storms and forest fires damaged the forests for years and made them a source of carbon emissions. The situation points to the need for more decisive climate action. UBA projections indicate that the country still falls considerably short of its medium-term and long-term greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The transport and buildings sectors remain the most problematic, and the government's current policy plans create a risk that the situation may worsen.
“In 2025 Germany's forests absorbed almost 20 million tonnes more CO₂ than they emitted; this comes after the severe drought-induced damage of recent years, which had turned the forests into a source of carbon emissions,” announced the UBA. “Germany's forests are once again “supporting” climate action,” stressed Environment Minister Carsten Schneider. “More must be done to ensure that the positive trend continues in future,” he added. “The positive development cannot be taken for granted and still depends heavily on the weather,” the minister noted at a press conference organised jointly with the UBA. Last year Schneider had already proposed strengthening the government's programme on nature-based climate action.
Between 2018 and 2023, Germany's forests suffered severely from recurring periods of drought, insect infestations, storms and forest fires, which ultimately made them a source of CO₂ emissions. Although large areas of forest have since “recovered” somewhat, in 2025 the land use sector as a whole was still a net source of emissions. Most emissions in this sector come from organic soils, mainly drained peatlands, noted the Thünen Institute, which supplies the data for Germany's greenhouse gas inventories. “Peatland restoration remains the principal method for substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry) sector,” the institute's scientists reported.
The good news about the forests contrasts sharply with emission trends in other sectors.
“Germany's total greenhouse gas emissions fell last year by only about one million tonnes (0.1%), reaching 649 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent,” the UBA noted. This means that Germany has cut its emissions by almost half since 1990 (-48% in 2025). However, to meet Germany's target of reducing emissions by 65% by 2030 compared with 1990, the country must from now on cut emissions by an average of 42 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent a year. “The tasks have become somewhat harder, but they can be tackled. The energy transition and the expanded use of renewable energy sources remain the “mainstay” for meeting the climate targets,” the UBA states in its report.
Emissions from industry fell largely because of economic stagnation, while transport and buildings emissions rose compared with 2024, clearly exceeding the annual levels set out in the country's Climate Action Act. Sales of transport fuels increased, and a cold winter raised the need to heat homes, still using fossil resources — gas or oil.
The emission projections presented by the UBA for the coming years and decades indicate that, given current policy, Germany will cut total emissions by only 62.6% by 2030, a slight deterioration compared with last year's projections. While the energy sector would exceed its targets, the transport sector and the building construction and management sector would considerably overshoot their emission limits in the coming years and would be the sectors where decarbonisation is proving hardest. In this way Germany is increasingly jeopardising the achievement of the European Union's climate targets in both these sectors; the emissions gap has widened since the UBA's previous projections for 2025.
The Cabinet of Ministers will adopt the climate policy programme on 25 March
Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government has so far not put forward suitable proposals capable of halting the negative trend, and the statutory deadline is approaching. The law requires Merz's coalition to submit a new Climate Action Programme by the end of this month, setting out in detail how the country intends to meet its 2030 and 2040 climate targets. The programme will include new proposals as well as measures the government put forward in the 2025 coalition agreement or has already adopted during its first months in office. The first draft, circulated earlier, did not adequately set out measures to close the so-called emissions gap. Environment Minister Schneider said the government would agree the final programme in the German Cabinet of Ministers on 25 March.
Although the planned measures, such as subsidies for electric cars, could help reduce emissions, other decisions by Chancellor Merz and his cabinet could have the opposite effect, for example the easing of EU car emission rules or the planned reform of Germany's “heating law”. Researchers have criticised the reform on the grounds that it could lead to higher emissions in the heating sector than under currently applicable policy.
“The buildings sector is and remains the German government's biggest problem in climate policy,” stressed Barbara Metz, executive director of the environmental campaign organisation Environmental Action Germany (DUH), noting: “Instead of finally tackling this problem, emissions will in fact increase because of the planned reform”. The DUH called on the government to submit a programme with effective measures to improve emission reduction efforts in other sectors too, for example by introducing a general speed limit on motorways.
Germany's independent Expert Council on Climate Change will assess the UBA's emission projections and submit its own report on the situation by mid-May.