Road traffic found to be major hurdle to Germany's climate goals

Germany's road traffic poses a big obstacle to the country's green energy transition, still accounting for 95% of all transport emissions, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) released on Monday.

Experts at the Paris-based agency identified transport as the "largest emitting sector in Germany," with 95% of total emissions found to come from road traffic.

"The transport sector must shift into high gear if it is to help drive Germany’s energy and economic transition," they said.

The review found that "incentives for consumers to adopt low-emissions transport options will be needed to deliver meaningful reductions in transport emissions in line with Germany's ambitions."

It stressed the need to improve public transport and focus increasingly on electric vehicles and biofuels, while also noting the need for upgrades to rail and electric charging infrastructure.

Elsewhere, the IEA said in a press release that while Germany was on a pathway to an energy system mainly based on renewables, "more work is needed in the energy sector to reach Germany's goal of climate neutrality by 2045."

Dubbed the Energy Policy Review, the report was conducted by the IEA and the German government to assess the most pressing challenges Germany faces in the energy sector and provide recommendations on how to address them.

It also "highlights areas where Germany's leadership can serve as an example in promoting secure clean energy transitions."

Cars becoming cleaner

In a sign of good news, data from Germany's federal motor transport authority suggests that the cars on the country's roads are slowly becoming more environmentally friendly.

As of January 1, almost 53% of the roughly 49 million cars registered in Germany either comply with the Euro 6 emissions standard - currently the strictest emissions standard for vehicles in the European Union - or do not emit any exhaust emissions because they are powered by an electric motor.

This was up from 49% last year, according to the authority.

The main driver behind the development was a fall in older cars by around 1.7 million, though the data did not reveal whether the vehicles were scrapped or sold abroad, for example.

Meanwhile the number of registered electric vehicles rose by 243,000 to 1.65 million.

The EU's exhaust emissions standards covering cars, vans and heavy-duty vehicles are designed to reduce pollution from road traffic, imposing limits for various pollutants including nitrogenoxides and particulate matter.

A new standard - Euro 7 - is due to come into force next year and regulate particulate pollution "from tyres and brakes for the first time worldwide," according to the European Commission.

More SUVs on German roads

But the exhaust standards do not regulate the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is limited according to drivetrain and motor efficiency as well as vehicle size.

Overall in Germany, the number of smaller-sized cars on the road declined. The compact class, which includes the Volkswagen (VW) Golf, is still the top type of vehicle on the road, but it declined by 132,000, while its smaller competitor, cars like the VW Polo, dropped by 101,000 to 8.6 million, according to the data.

The number of medium-sized cars and vans also declined, while the number of SUVs rose by 588,000 to 6.6 million, accounting for almost a third of new registrations in 2024, though many of them were EVs.