Comparison of the "Big 5" climate neutrality scenarios

A number of expert opinions are now providing potential answers to the question, “How can Germany become climate-neutral by the year 2045?” These have come from, for example: the Foundation for Climate Neutrality, Agora Energiewende, and Agora Verkehrswende (Climate Neutral Germany 2045), the BDI ("Climate Paths 2.0"), the German Energy Agency ("Rise of Climate Neutrality"), the Federal Ministry of Economics ("Long-Term Scenarios") or from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) project and the MCC (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change) in the context of the Kopernikus Project Ariadne.

Our task & results

Together with the consortia, Prognos carried out a structured comparison of the five climate neutrality scenarios. The goal: to bring transparency to the debate on a climate-neutral Germany. The present comparison shows the similarities and differences between the results and the underlying assumptions of the reports.

The five studies produce similar results, especially for the period up to 2030 – but differ in some cases in the underlying assumptions and with regard to the results over the longer term.

A consistent picture exists above all about how necessary hydrogen and e-fuel are for achieving the goal of climate neutrality. However, there are still different assumptions in development about the quantity and use in the different sectors. In the long term, however, all scenarios expect that electricity will be the dominant energy source in the energy system and that electrification will increase significantly across all sectors.

Links und Downloads

On the Climate Neutrality Foundation website you will find:

Scenario Comparison (PDF, in German)

More information and the data attachment of the senario comparison (in German)

Projectteam

Sebastian Lübbers, Marco Wünsch, Miriam Lovis