On Wednesday, December 9, 2020, the Lower Saxony state parliament passed what Lower Saxony's Environment and Climate Protection Minister Olaf Lies called a "very important and groundbreaking" law: With the Lower Saxony Climate Act, the topic of climate protection is anchored in the state constitution, the state-wide energy demand is to be completely covered by renewable energies by 2040 and Lower Saxony commits to climate neutrality by 2050. Lies: "With this, we have a law that does justice to the importance of climate protection as the central social task for the coming years and decades. It sets an important course for the future. This is what this state government and the parliamentary groups that support it stand for - setting realistic goals that can also be implemented. We are setting standards and probably have the most ambitious climate law in the whole of Germany! We are consistently pursuing our goal of making Lower Saxony the No. 1 climate protection state. We are already the No. 1 energy state, and we will also achieve this in climate protection!"
The full speech by the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change:
19:26 min, 9/12/2020.
The goal is to cover 100 percent of the energy demand in Lower Saxony with renewable energies by 2040. "To achieve this, we need a massive acceleration in the expansion of wind energy and photovoltaics that exceeds the best expansion year of the last 20 years many times over - and we need to do this consistently and permanently until 2040. This is an enormous challenge, but it is urgently necessary. The Federal Government must now set the right course for this in the Renewable Energy Sources Act," said Lies.
In addition, Lower Saxony could become a driver of innovation in climate protection, the Minister emphasized: "Through strong, courageous companies, through motivated, well-trained employees, through a functioning and trusting social partnership - employers and trade unions will go hand in hand here - I am convinced of that - and last but not least through a state government that has its sights firmly set on the future of Lower Saxony and creates incentives." With the programme of measures for energy and climate protection alone, which was recently approved by the cabinet, the state government is investing more than one billion euros. Lies: "And it is doing so in order to invest well in the future - among other things in climate-friendly mobility, in the energy refurbishment of our buildings, in solar technology, in hydrogen or the transition to a greenhouse gas-neutral economy. This will create additional demand, which in turn will contribute to higher production and employment - in the skilled trades, in the construction industry or in manufacturing."
What is always needed is "a clever mix of different instruments", which has been achieved with the present programme. In future, the programme of measures will be integrated into a comprehensive climate protection strategy for Lower Saxony.
"State objective, climate law and climate protection strategy: this is Lower Saxony's climate path," said Lies, "our contribution to national and international climate protection targets and the engine for our business and industrial location. We are already the No. 1 energy state in Germany. Now we have the legal basis to also become the No. 1 climate protection country. We don't just want to be on the climate protection train, we want to be the locomotive. We owe that to future generations. They have just as much right as we do to a habitable planet - also in the future."
Links
Download the draft version
www.niedersachsen.de/download/116752
Information from the Climate and Energy Agency of Lower Saxony (KEAN)
www.klimaschutz-niedersachsen.de/themen/klimaschutz/klimaschutz-in-niedersachsen.php
Comment from 10. 12. 2020
https://taz.de/Niedersachsen-bekommt-Klimaschutzgesetz/!5730550/
Keywords:
Movies, Movies 11 to 45 Min, Climate protection, News Blog Lower Saxony, Environmental policy
