Germany is preparing a draft law to enable local utilities to phase out gas grids as they plan for a climate neutral future. Utilities have voiced concerns that a lack of rules governing the phase-out remains a major obstacle in the decision-making process to decommission grids or convert them to green gas. According to the draft, utilities would have to inform affected users well in advance and provide information on alternatives and subsidies.

Germany’s railway operator is planning to use steel produced in a climate-friendly way for its infrastructure modernisation. As part of a pilot project, Deutsche Bahn (DB) signed a supply contract with Saarstahl Rail for around 22 kilometres of rail tracks made from green steel, the operator said.

Large-scale batteries already take and provide electricity in a way that helps stabilise Germany’s grids without causing additional costs, but their contribution could be much higher, according to a report by consultancy Neon. 

The majority of workers in Germany feel that climate change has had an effect on their workplace, a survey by health insurer TK has found. Sixty percent of surveyed people said that climate change had impacted the job and health of employees in their company in recent years, with outdoor workers feeling most affected.

🚪 Open door once more for Canadian LNG supplies to Europe? This morning brought a bit of a whirlwind of events here in Berlin: Canada's prime minister Mark Carney and his energy and natural resources...

The agreement between the United States and European Union on tariffs serves only as a burden to companies due to its lack of clarity, according to a poll of German businesses calling for tougher action from Brussels.

A deadly train accident in southern Germany has raised questions of how prepared the country’s transport infrastructure is to withstand extreme weather events fuelled by climate change. Authorities in the state of Baden-Württemberg said the accident near the city of Ulm was likely caused by a landslide, after heavy rainfall in the hilly region damaged the tracks, newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. 

German households are saving money on electricity and gas bills by increasingly changing suppliers or securing better contracts, the country's network agency BNetzA said. "In 2024 alone, German households were able to save around 2.2 billion euros in energy costs by switching contracts and suppliers," said BNetzA head Klaus Müller.

Germany is not sufficiently prepared to protect its citizens in the event of widespread power outages or large-scale natural disasters, Kay Ruge, head of the German Districts Association (DLT), told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ). "There is no comprehensive, overarching plan," he said, adding that "civil protection has played no role in political prioritisation in recent years."

The European Commission has included ocean energy among the technologies eligible under the 5% innovation target.

The two EU conservative heavyweights’ growing divisions are coming to a head over a crucial 2040 climate target.

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Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) from the atmosphere will be key to reaching climate neutrality, and the scale-up of relevant technologies requires subsidies and the integration into European emissions trading systems (EU ETS), said a report commissioned by the lobby group German Association for Negative Emissions (DVNE).

Plans to build one of Europe's largest green energy hubs on the site of disused coal-fired power plant units in eastern Germany have been postponed indefinitely, energy firm LEAG said on Friday.

From 2027, the new EU Emissions Trading System (ETS-2) is expected to put a price on CO₂ emissions from the buildings and transport sectors across Europe for the first time. Fuel suppliers will be required to purchase CO₂ certificates to cover emissions in these sectors. In this paper, Germanwatch presents a 5-point plan for an effective and socially just implementation of EU emissions trading in Germany, developed in cooperation with Climate Alliance Germany, Diakonie Deutschland and 12 other partner organisations.

ArcelorMittal's cancellation of green steel programme in Bremen also "significantly influenced" our decision, firm tells Hydrogen Insight

EU rules have pushed many investment funds to drop terms like “sustainable” or “climate” from their names if they could not live up to the promise, even though guidelines did not cause fund operators to design their portfolios in a more sustainable way, said NGO Finance Watch Germany (Finanzwende). A joint assessment of more than 15,000 funds on the European market by NGOs urgewald and Facing Finance found that 674 funds, whose former name would have required an end to fossil fuel investments under the new rules, were simply renamed.

A social leasing scheme could make it possible for low-income households in Germany to switch to an electric car without having to bear the upfront costs of buying a vehicle outright, found a report by environmental non-profit Öko-Institut. “Social leasing should enable low-income households to use electric vehicles at greatly reduced leasing rates – without having to have large savings or take out loans,” explained the institute's mobility transition expert Nelly Unger.

A quarter of people in Germany either already have or plan to install a mini solar module on their balcony or in their garden, found a survey by comparison portal Verivox. Around nine percent of those surveyed already had a system installed, with a further 17 percent planning to buy one. Compared to results from 2024, interest dropped five percentage points from the 22 percent of people surveyed who said they had plans to acquire a plug-in solar unit. Actual ownership increased by one percentage point compared to the previous year.

The mild winter and low rainwater levels could have severe consequences for Germany's agriculture, shipping industry and public health. Large parts of the country are experiencing extreme drought, according to the drought monitor of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. These dry topsoils could impact crop yields, researchers warned, with March 2025 among the driest springtime months on record.