Country guides and Dispatches

For the first time ever, Germany is projected to be on track towards reaching its national 2030 climate targets - if it manages to implement climate policies as planned, projections by the country's Federal Environment Agency (UBA) show. Positive developments in the expansion of renewable energy sources and new schemes for industry decarbonisation point in the right direction. Germany managed to push coal-fired power production to the lowest level in more than half a century in the same year it phased out nuclear power. However, the government is still grappling with challenges regarding its climate action funding that was brought about by a constitutional court ruling in late 2023 and struggles to find comprehensive answers for bringing down notoriously high emissions in the transport and buildings sector.

Italy has taken significant steps in its green transition over the past decade, but the current government under prime minister Giorgia Meloni is also focused on making the country a "gas hub" in the Mediterranean Sea, demonstrating its ongoing deep ties to fossil fuels. The year 2024 has started with the Italy-Africa Summit and the country's G7 presidency, both focusing on energy cooperation and addressing immigration issues through the so-called "Mattei Plan". Researchers and NGOs have criticised the country's new draft energy and climate plan (NECP) for being vague about key topics such as phasing out oil, coal and gas, and expanding alternative energy sources like wind or solar power – issues that make meeting the EU's climate and renewables targets all the harder.

Amid what has been dubbed a "super election year" in Croatia with three important votes – parliamentary, EU and presidential – it was expected that energy issues would play an important role in political campaigns. However, they were not dominant in either the parliamentary election campaign or the European election campaign. In May, a new coalition of the centre-right HDZ and the right-wing Homeland Movement (Domovinski pokret) received the green light from parliament, and the new government, in its four-year plan, highlighted plans to invest in renewable energy sources, decarbonise the transport sector, and expand the LNG terminal on the island of Krk.