Experts at the energy transition think tank Agora Energiewende have calculated that Germany's emissions fell only slightly in 2025. Pollution from buildings and transport in Germany has held back what is known as overall climate progress. The slowdown in the pace of emissions reductions, in turn, prompted calls for tougher government measures even before the adoption of the main Climate Action Programme, which aims to help Germany get back on track towards meeting its climate targets.
According to the think tank's calculations, emissions in Germany fell by just 1.5% (or 9 million tonnes), to 640 million tonnes. This means that, compared with 2024, the rate of reduction has more than halved, Agora Energiewende notes in its annual review.
"Climate protection slowed down last year," stressed Julia Blasius, head of the think tank's Germany programme, pointing out that the slow shift to climate-friendly technologies in buildings and transport has for the first time clearly affected the overall balance. According to Agora Energiewende's calculations, emissions in both sectors rose in 2025, which duly showed that Germany is not "on the right track" to meet its 2030 climate targets. In previous years, the considerable fall in emissions in the electricity sector offset the slow progress in the transport and buildings sectors. According to the calculations, emissions from buildings increased by 3.2% compared with 2024, while transport emissions rose by 1.4%. The experts did, however, highlight the growth in sales of electric vehicles and heat pumps, pointing to possible emissions reductions in the future.
Last year's overall fall in emissions was partly linked to lower output in Germany's energy-intensive industry, the result of prolonged weak demand and difficult global market conditions. It also came alongside record levels of solar power generation. Agora Energiewende's experts stress that the drop in industrial emissions is "essentially bad news", because it is the result of economic weakness rather than of progress on climate action.
According to the data analysis, the share of renewables in Germany's total electricity consumption rose by only about one percentage point in 2025, to 55.3%. Light winds affected wind power generation, and those losses were offset by strong solar generation, driven by the rapid uptake of the technology and by the number of sunny hours.
Agora Energiewende's calculations broadly confirmed an earlier report drawn up by scientists at the research institute Fraunhofer ISE, which put the share of renewables at 55.9%. However, Fraunhofer ISE focuses on the share of renewables in the public grid, whereas Agora Energiewende's data also includes industrial sites that generate electricity for use on site.
Climate activists criticise the German government
As usual, environmental activists are criticising the government, stepping up the pressure on it to set out real climate action strategies for heating and transport in the long-awaited Climate Action Programme, which is intended to speed up the achievement of Germany's climate targets. Germany's Climate Action Programme is due to be submitted by March this year. Greenpeace, for example, accused the German government of slowing the transition in both sectors. Activists stressed that, by making the wrong promises about combustion engines and gas boilers, the government has "drawn the public into a fossil fuel price trap". Environmental activists are voicing loud criticism that the German government has promised to change the existing policy that is driving the shift to climate-friendly heating. Germany, together with the Italian government, is pushing an initiative in the European Union to soften the 2035 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars. This initiative too is, of course, being fiercely criticised in statements from environmental NGOs.
"Electric cars and heat pumps have been available for a long time and their sales figures have been good of late. The federal government must reinforce, not weaken, these successes in the forthcoming German Climate Action Programme," Greenpeace stresses. The leadership of WWF Germany, for instance, argues that the phase-out of combustion engines in cars should not be scrapped and that the heating law should also be strengthened, because "measures for a sustainable transport and construction sector must be expanded".