Germany is lagging behind in climate action and the country is likely to miss its sectoral targets for emission reductions this year, the country's new climate and economy "super minister", Robert Habeck, has said. "We will probably miss our targets for 2022, even 2023 will be hard enough. We are starting with a drastic backlog," the Green politician told "Die Zeit." Germany last year fixed more ambitious annual emission budgets for its economic sectors. But in 2021, total emissions increased due to the economic recovery and comparably weak renewables output, according to initial estimates. Think tank Agora Energiewende has already said that Germany would miss 2021 climate targets in sectors like buildings, but the German Environment Agency (UBA) will release first emissions data for last year only by mid-March. In October, a government projection report also said that Germany's current emission reduction efforts were not sufficient to achieve longer-term climate targets.

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