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Between 1991 and 2022, Estonia's emissions intensity will decrease by 83.73%, followed by Ireland with an 82.22% decrease and Lithuania with an 80.26% reduction.
In absolute terms, the Eastern European country is also in first place among the EU27 states. Only China reduced more in absolute terms. The lowest percentage reduction is in Cyprus and Portugal. Here, emissions intensity was reduced by around 35%. The average reduction in the EU-27 countries is 56%.
If all countries were to continue decoupling their GHG emissions from the economy as they did in 2022, only Luxembourg and Latvia would become climate neutral by 2045.
The decoupling rates are subject to strong fluctuations. Crises or other events can cause them to shoot up or down quickly. It can therefore be useful to look at the decoupling trend - this is negative for 19 countries. In the case of decoupling, the desired direction.
Germany comes closest to the self-imposed target year of 2045 immediately after reunification and during major crisis years.
If Germany were to permanently operate as it did in 1992, 2009 or 2020, the target of climate neutrality would be achieved in 2046, 2048 or 2053. With the GHG reduction rate of 2022, however, Germany would not reach net zero until 2255.
The EU27 countries can be grouped according to their per capita emissions. Many countries appear to have already passed the peak of their relative emissions. Their per capita emissions have been falling for several years. A small group of countries continues to emit more per person from year to year.
Finland wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2035. Earlier than any other EU-27 country. The country's huge forests are to help it achieve this. Finland performs differently in terms of the decoupling rate.
This is mainly due to the changed rates of other countries, but also partly due to its own strongly fluctuating rates.
A comparison of the regions shows a clear East-West divide in terms of emissions intensity. Emissions intensity, i.e. greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP produced, is significantly higher on average in Eastern European regions than in Western regions. In terms of the decoupling rate or emissions per capita, however, eastern and western regions are on a par.
The Net-Zero Navigator is a platform of the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Sustainable Economy project.
The Navigator has been available since 2024. The tool's current data horizon is 2022; previous years' data are entered into the Navigator at the end of each calendar year.
Questions and comments about the Net-Zero Navigator can be sent to: fritz.putzhammer@bertelsmann-stiftung.de
The Net-Zero Navigator aims to visualize a complex world in an intuitively understandable way. The following model assumptions are made for this purpose:
1. reduction pathways based on an average annual percentage reduction in GHG emissions are assumed for the achievement of national climate neutrality targets.
2. The goal of climate neutrality allows each country an individual level of residual emissions that can realistically be offset. The information provided by the countries in their UN LT-LEDS is primarily used as the basis for calculating these residual emissions. For countries that have not provided specific information on residual emissions in their strategy reports, estimated values based on the relative economic power of the countries are used.
3. For the variable “Climate neutral in” in the Navigator's country overview, only the emissions reduction during the current year selected in the tool is taken into account. This means that the Navigator calculates for each country when the target of climate neutrality would be achieved if the country were to reduce emissions every year from now on to the same extent as it did in the selected year.
4. The classification into colored quintiles in the Navigator country and region comparison is calculated individually for each KPI based on the minimum and maximum values in the most recent year (2023). The quintiles are therefore comparable over the years and show in each year how well or poorly developed a KPI is for a country in that year relative to the 2023 framework values.
The Net-Zero Navigator obtains the majority of its data from the EDGAR Project database.
The EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, is a collaboration between the European Commission, the Joint Research Center (JRC), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and includes the datasets IEA-EDGAR CO2, EDGAR CH4, EDGAR N2O, EDGAR F-GASES version 8.0, (2023) European Commission, JRC (Datasets).
Additional data on regional GDP and population development comes from the European Commission's ARDECO Explorer.
Existing data from the above-mentioned datasets were used to calculate new, proprietary KPIs.
An overview of the current working and studies of the project "Nachhaltig Wirtschaften" of the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
The Blog transforming economices from the project "Nachhaltig Wirtschaften" of the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Our Study: Growth or shrinkage in the socio-ecological transformation: a question of decoupling (Available in German only)
