Expert report
Resilience of Germany's long-term strategy for climate protection
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Sustainable Development
Natural Resources
International Trade
Climate
Germany
To achieve climate neutrality, resource-poor countries like Germany crucially depend on imports of raw materials for wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, electric motors and fuel cells. As recent crises have highlighted, strong dependence on individual suppliers and sensitive supply chains can delay the transition toward climate neutrality. This study, which was commissioned by the German “Wissenschaftsplattform Klimaschutz”, assesses the risks to Germany's transformation toward climate neutrality that result from imports of critical raw materials and fossil energies. It also suggests policy measures to strengthen the resilience of the transformation process, and analyzes the economic and legal contexts of these measures. It emphasizes the need for extensive research on substituting critical raw materials, for facilitating extensive recycling, for diversifying import sources, and for incentivizing strategic inventories of critical raw materials.
