Environmental Issues Faced by Germany

Germany is a Western European country with forests, rivers, mountains and sea beaches. Germany has a diverse range of eco system which consist with coastlines, fertile plains, highlands, forests and mountain Alps. Even though Germany consists with such natural beauty, Germans tend to live in urban areas. Nearly 86% from total population are living in the urban areas of Germany. There is nearly 583 per square of population density in and it indicate 58th rank of globally. And also it has one of the lowest birthrates in the world. According to the 2018 estimations there is 82,293,457 of population. It is the 17th most populated country in the world and most populous country in the European Union.

When it comes to the climate of Germany, it can be identified as temperate seasonal climate and it is dominated by humid westerly winds. The climate in Germany is mainly decided the Northern Extension of the Gulf stream, the North Atlantic Drift and the ocean climate in north and northwest coastal region.

According to the above-mentioned information we can identify Germany as an industrialized nation. So Germany faces all the general environmental issues faced by any industrialized nation. Such as air pollution, water pollution, global warming, destroy of the forestry system and so on. These problems faced by Germany, relate to the industrial overdevelopment and automobile traffic. For example, in every summer many automobiles from each corner of the Europe are driving across the Germany. Situations like this cause to pollute the environment more than the home-grown environmental problems. As a densely settled country, Germany has a limited land air and water in which to bury and dissipate all the toxic wastes produced by its intensive industrial development. Pollutants release by factories and automobile exhausts are blamed for the widespread destruction of forests from acid rain.

When it comes to the air pollution in Germany, there is a considerable level of air pollution as all the western industrialized countries, but it has worsened in recent years. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, German government decided to phase out country’s nuclear power plants. To do tat the government required to burn more coal and as a result of that the level of air pollution was increased. It is in a higher rate in 2013 rather than 1980.

In the case of water pollution, it has increased due to the open cast mining in the East Germany. During mining days, the areas around the mine were drain of water. But now they are out of operations and due to that water levels have risen and caused a brown sludge to start filling up the Spree River, killing wildlife in the popular tourist attraction and UESCO biosphere reserve.

Another factor that affecting to the environmental pollution is global warming it has become the most important environmental issue which Germany is facing today.

Another critical problem in Germany is deforestation of Hambach forest for take lignite coal. Nearly 37% of the country’s electricity is generated by lignite coal. But due to the crash of the Hambach forest Germany tries to replace this need with renewable energy. The Hambach forest is 12000 years old and has been slowly destroyed. However mining company need to expand mining to the forest area to generate more electricity in order to cover the requirements of upcoming genrations.

When it comes to the environmental policies of Germany it has taken several actions to face consequences of global warming. Germany is a leading country in battling carbon emissions. One effort is that Germany is tries to increase the efficiency of using resources. The major goal of German government set is to use fever resources while maintaining the same amount of prosperity. According to the 2014 report efficient of using resources expecting to be doubled in 2020.

Another policy is that German government focus on implementation of renewable energy productions. According to the European Environmental Agency in 2013, 12% of final energy consumption came from renewable energy sources. 9.1% of renewable energy was coming from heat and 5.5% from fuel consumption.

Germany has made strictest standards for world wide fracking. Some observers said that it could be set a stage for nation-wide fracking ban.

In Germany there’re lot of people working the renewable energy sector and they focus on how to eliminate usage of coal. They has appointed a separate commission called Coal Exit Commission to find out how to stop using coal and to produce electricity.

Germany is often mentioned among the world leaders in green technology and according to the United Nations frame work for climate change, the number of German green technology patents more than tripled between 2007 and 2013.

When focus on finding renewable energy sources solar energy has taken a larger part on German’s renewable push. German innovators are focus on two types of solar energy. They are conventional photovoltaics solar power and concentrated solar power. The technology generates heat which can either be stored o create electricity through a standard turbine.

Germans are also focused on wind power innovations. Wind power is Germany’s second largest electricity source and contributes nearly 19% of their energy generation.

In 2017 Germany was able to generate 36% of electricity with clean energy generation alone. This is a significant increase from 4% back in 2016. This shows a remarkable growth in the renewable energy sector.

Germany has taken the political support in protecting environment through environmental protest movement and green party (a political party that focuses on environmental issues). Through this two events Germany could be able to take their attention to the environment because they compete with each-other. As ultimate result Germany developed an eco-industry which manufacturing pollution control devices and other environmentally useful equipment. In addition to that Germany has come up with various international environmental agreements on air pollution, bio diversity, global warming, endangered species, oceans, the ozone layer, wet lands and whaling.

Like this we can see there are critical environmental issues faced by Germany and also they have taken certain actions in order to eliminate those issues. Major environmental issues faced by Germany are air pollution, water pollution, global warming, deforestation. Government has taken certain actions in order to overcome them. As a industrialized nation Germany has focused on large scale options in protecting environment rather than following small environment protecting options such as recycling, growing artificial forests which can be helps to save cost and resources to future.