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In 30 years of climate policy in Germany, a high level of declared ambition has coexisted with an eclectic mix of climate policy measures. Well-organized lobbies were either exempt from policy instruments such as the energy tax or directly benefitted from them, as in the case of the renewable feed-in tariff or windfall profits from free allocation of emissions allowances. As a result, German emissions mitigation is much more costly than it would have to be. Moreover, the challenges because of the imminent phase-out of nuclear power are increasing due to failures in a number of relevant policy fields such as offshore wind, grid reinforcement, and carbon capture and storage ( CCS). WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:315-320. doi: 10.1002/wcc.224 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German wind power development is a technological success story but has involved very high subsidies. Germany was a latecomer in wind power but specific political conditions in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed the implementation of the feed-in tariff regime, which has characterized Germany ever since. The wind lobby managed to constitute itself at an early stage and to develop stable alliances with farmers and regional policymakers. The concentration of the wind industry in structurally weak regions reinforced these links. With an increased visibility of the subsidies and saturation of onshore sites in the early 2000s, the lobby has been less successful in retaining support. The current attempt to develop offshore projects may suffer from less favourable interest constellations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany is one of the two OECD countries having achieved substantial greenhouse gas reductions in the last decade. While a part was large reductions in industry after the economic crash in East Germany, a relevant share is due to the huge public infrastructure investments in East Germany. The real success of German climate policy in the past decade is the strong reduction of methane and nitrous oxide which has been almost unnoticed.German climate policy is a good example of how lobbying of interest groups leads to a complex maze of hundreds of measures whose effects are difficult to evaluate. Paradoxically, policies have focused on expensive measures and Germany clearly is a pioneer in the most expensive forms of renewable energy. Concerning cost-effective measures and market instruments, Germany is a laggard. Only slowly, policymakers start to notice this distortion and first, shaky steps towards a more cost-efficient policy are made. Several challenges such as nuclear phase-out and trends in household energy consumption will put pressure on government to embrace the Kyoto Mechanisms and to refocus domestic instruments well before the first commitment period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights the results of the 1999 climate summit meeting held in Bonn, Germany. Agreements reached in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1998; United States stand on the issue prior to the Bonn meeting; Emissions trading; Issues which have been ignored in the summit meetings.