( Middle East Monitor ) – Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) funded by European Union research programmes to target civilians is attracting a lot of criticism. Since the Israeli attacks on Gaza began on 7 October, 2023, the EU has provided over €238 million ($246m) to Israeli institutions for research and innovation. The funds are believed to have supported the development of AI-driven “location and killing” technology used by Israel against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Nozomi Takahashi, a member of the board of directors of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCAP), told Anadolu that they are aware of allegations about EU funds aiding AI technologies targeting civilians. Takahashi said that they had addressed the issue in letters to high-level EU officials, including former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

She pointed to AI-based systems used by the Israeli army called “Habsora” (The Gospel), “Lavender” and “Where is Daddy?” She said that these systems are used “to identify, locate and kill the targets in the current genocide in Gaza.”

Emphasising that these systems are used indiscriminately against civilians, Takahashi noted that, “Such extrajudicial killing is prohibited by international law. The scale and frequency of civilians killed in Gaza using such AI systems are devastating.”

The ECCAP official highlighted the EU’s particular focus on AI development, and said that Israeli research institutions are also involved in various EU-funded projects in this field. However, identifying which EU-funded project underpins those used by the Israeli army is impossible due to confidentiality and secrecy. “The potential high risk associated with such technology in the hands of a government that has a record of human rights violations should raise the alarm.”

Only civilian projects, added Takahashi, are eligible for funding through the Horizon Europe programme. “The development of such AI technology further blurs the border between civil and military applications.” She criticised the EU for its “narrow focus” when evaluating the goals of the projects that it funds, with insufficient monitoring and overlooking the potential for their use in the military.

Takahashi highlighted that Horizon Europe’s ethical principles require funded projects to uphold “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities.” However, the research entity’s history with military activities or human rights violations is “neither questioned nor required” during ethics reviews, she claimed.

According to Eman Abboud, a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, it has been demonstrated that EU funds have financed arms companies under the guise of civil security and tech research. She said that the EU is “culpable” by supporting the military industry in Israel — the state is currently facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — through its funding programmes.

“Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries, which profit from and are deeply complicit in Israel’s long-term violent oppression and apartheid, as well as the current genocide of the Palestinian people, have received funding for security research from European funding programmes,” explained Abboud.

Criticising the ability of organisations contributing to human rights violations and the undermining of international humanitarian law to benefit from EU funds, she said, “The EU has refused to sever its trade links with Israel or ban them from Horizon Europe,” despite the ongoing ICJ case against the occupation state.

“Lavender Genocide Bot,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024

She referenced EU-GLOCTER, a “counter-terrorism” project involving Israeli institutions, noting the links to Israel’s military and intelligence, including Reichman University’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), which was co-founded by a former intelligence chief. “We must understand that institutions like these provide the means to create the intelligence apparatus that is used to target specific civilians in Gaza and in Lebanon. We cannot separate them, given the strategic dual use of academic research funding and military research funding.”

The AI technology developed within the Israeli military named Habsora, generating automated and real-time targets, frequently strikes civilian infrastructure and residential areas, with the number of civilian casualties always being known in advance.

The Lavender technology analyses data collected on approximately 2.3 million people in Gaza using ambiguous criteria to assess the likelihood of an individual’s connection to the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Sources told Tel Aviv-based +972 and Local Call that, early in the Gaza attacks, the military was “completely reliant” on Lavender, automatically targeting males it flagged, without oversight or specific criteria. Lavender has marked approximately 37,000 Palestinians as “suspects”.

Using the AI-based system called “Where is Daddy?” Israel simultaneously tracks thousands of individuals and when they enter their homes targeted individuals are bombed, with no regard for the presence of civilians, including women and children.

These AI technologies are known to make computational errors frequently and disregard the principle of “proportionality”. They have played a significant role in the killing of over 45,850 Palestinians since 7 October, 2023.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 63, provides for the notification of all member states about procedures regarding conventions that might affect them, and that “every state so notified has the right to intervene in the proceedings.” In this case, the relevant document is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.

The Irish intervention addresses the difficulty of proving that officials of a state have deliberately set themselves a goal of wiping out another people in whole or in part. It says, “Ireland respectfully submits that the perpetrator does not need to have, as his or her purpose, the commission of the crime of genocide when committing any one or more of the material elements of the crime. The crime may also be committed where a perpetrator – regardless of his or her purpose – knows (or should know) that the natural and probable consequence of these acts is either to destroy or contribute to the destruction of the protected group, in whole or part, as such, and proceeds regardless.”

That is, if a reasonable person can foresee that dropping 500-lb. bombs on residential apartment complexes, destroying water pipes, destroying most of the hospitals, and making people move from one tent camp to another once they were rendered homeless, would have a genocidal effect, and nevertheless committed these acts, the person is guilty of genocide even if there isn’t a smoking gun document of intent.

Ireland’s document concludes, “It is evident from the drafting history of the Convention that the term intent is not limited to the purpose of the perpetrator, but can also comprehend knowledge of the foreseeable consequence of the act committed.”

It is sort of like if a person kept shooting a gun in the general direction of a crowd of people, and ends up killing someone, the shooter would be guilty of murder even if there was no specific intent to kill that individual, because a reasonable person could foresee that shooting the gun repeatedly in the direction of a crowd would eventually result in a death.

Ireland’s Declaration of Intervention also tackles the difficulty that genocides often take place in the context of war-fighting, so that it is difficult to determine whether what appear to be genocidal acts are simply “collateral damage,” the unfortunate civilian deaths that inadvertently attend any battle.

The Declaration quotes the ICJ itself on one way to resolve this condundrum: “The Court restated this test where it said that ‘for a pattern of conduct, that is to SllJJ, a consistent series of acts carried out over a specific period of time, to be accepted as evidence of genocidal intent, it would have to be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent, that is to say, that it can only reasonably be understood as reflecting that intent [ … ]’

This can be characterised as the ‘only reasonable inference’ test.”

Photo by Roman Boed,
from PxHere.

Ireland points out that in the real world, actions can be taken for more than one purpose. That is, a country may kill large numbers of civilians while fighting a war both because that country is fighting a war and because it wants to destroy a group in whole or in part. The mere fact of war-fighting cannot be invoked to rule out genocidal intent.

The Declaration says, “Ireland submits that, in order to avoid the possibility of genocide being excluded in most, if not all, cases of anned conflict the application of the ‘only reasonable inference’ test clarifies that a pattern of conduct can only be fully explained as intended to destroy – at least in part – the protected group. In applying the test, Ireland respectfully submits that it is not necessary that the acts concerned should be exclusively intended to destroy the group but could also be committed with the intent of achieving one or more other objectives.”

The Irish cabinet made the decision to intervene at a cabinet meeting in early December. Deputy Prime Minister (Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs) Micheál Martin said then that:

“There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced.

“By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State.

“We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised.

“Ireland’s view of the Convention is broader and prioritises the protection of civilian life – as a committed supporter of the Convention, the government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case.”

He added on another occasion, “Fundamentally, Ireland is asking the court to broaden its interpretation of genocide within the Genocide Convention.”

Although the center-right Irish government has made it clear that it stands with South Africa in charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, the ICJ rules on such interventions give Ireland the position of adding to the deliberations. Article 82 of the Rules of the Court provide for signatories intervening in cases to engage in the “identification of the particular provisions of the convention the construction of which it considers to be in question” and to submit a list of documents in support of a case.

Arab 48 reports that the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, the organizer of the ceremony to be held on January 27, Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, said, “We are bound to respect the decision of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.”

Rzeczpospolita reported that the Israeli state never asked that Netanyahu participate in the ceremonies, since the Israelis know very well what Warsaw’s response would be if Netanyahu traveled there.

Netanyahu has throughout his political career played politics with the Holocaust, so it is deeply ironic that he cannot attend the ceremony because he is charged with himself having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Genocide scholars have criticized the use of the Holocaust to justify Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

The ICC issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024 on the charge of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including a charge of deliberately starving the Palestinians there.

The countries that have vowed to arrest the Israeli prime minister if he steps foot on their soil include Spain, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said, “We cannot implement a double standard.”

There is a background to the satisfaction Poland might take in arresting Netanyahu, whose father Benzion Mileikowsky was born in Warsaw. The family changed their name in Israel.

The Poles maintain that the Holocaust was a Nazi German project implemented in part on Polish soil when Poland was occupied and helpless. The Polish parliament in 2018 even passed, and then backed off, a law making it illegal to accuse Poles of having been implicated in the commission of the genocide against the Jews.

In 2019, Netanyahu was quoted as saying in the presence of several journalists, “The Poles collaborated with the Nazis, and I don’t know anyone who was ever sued for such a statement.” He made similar statements on social media, but they were quickly deleted.

Tel Aviv at the time was planning an 8-nation conference in Israel of center-right governments, and the Poles were among the invitees. They boycotted, accusing Netanyahu of racism, which affected the prime minister’s prestige. He then maintained that it was all a misunderstanding and he never said any such thing but had been misquoted.

The two countries clashed again in 2021 over a Polish law limiting any further property claims for damages during the Holocaust. The law was of a piece with the general denial of any Polish culpability in the Holocaust.

Poland has been more sympathetic to Palestinian statehood aspirations than Israel’s right-wing government is comfortable with.

On the other hand, Poland has not itself been vocal in denouncing Israeli actions in Gaza, which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch categorize as a genocide. Two-thirds of Poles in polling say they don’t want to get involved in the Israel-Palestine dispute.

He nevertheless had the gall to accuse the Prime Minister of Ireland of being a bigot, closing the Israeli embassy in Dublin on the grounds that he views virtually all Irish people as racists. Hmm. There must be a word for when you negatively stereotype an entire people…

Likely the move came in response to Ireland’s recent decision to join in South Africa’s complaint against Israel for genocide with the International Court of Justice. Even more dangerous for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and Gideon Saar, Ireland is seeking a more practicable definition of genocide. Current international legislation puts too much emphasis on intent and sets the bar for finding genocide so high it is almost impossible to meet.

Deputy Prime Minister Micheál Martin complained, “a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised.” He said the Irish view of the genocide convention is “broader” and prioritizes “the protection of civilian life.”

Some things about Saar should be remembered. In his youth he was a member of the far right Tehiya Party and he actively protested the 1982 Israeli withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as a result of the Camp David peace accords. In other words, Saar has all his life held anti-Arab views and he wants to occupy and colonize the lands of his neighbors. The United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory, forbids acquiring the territory of neighbors through aggressive war, but that was what Israel did in 1967 when it launched an invasion of Egypt, which had not militarily attacked it.

As Interior Minister, Saar rounded up African migrants in Israel and put them in a detention camp. He defended it and wanted to expand it. The camp was just for Africans. Hmm. There must be a word for when you target a particular racial group for collective punishment …

Saar opposed then President Trump’s “Deal of the Century” because it implied some form of a Palestinian state. Saar says Israel must remain the only state “from the river to the sea” (alert American university presidents, who seem to think this diction is racist). He firmly rejects any state for a Palestinian, insisting that they must remain stateless and under Israeli control forever. He says there can never be “two states for two peoples.” He wants to annex much of the Palestinian West Bank, a violation of international law. He considers Hebron (al-Khalil), a major Palestinian city in the Palestinian West Bank, to be part of Israel.

He said that Gaza “must be smaller” after the war, another advocacy of a war crime.

Let’s just imagine an American politician who wanted to occupy Manitoba or Tijuana militarily, who rounded up migrants and put them in camps, and who declared that there can be only one sovereign country in North America and it must be White. Those would be the US equivalents of Saar’s politics. Those politics, in our context, would be forthrightly characterized by everyone as racist.

It is one of the great ironies of our time that a man with these views can have the temerity to brand Irish President Michael D Higgins and Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Simon Harris racist bigots who are prejudiced against Jews.

Higgins gave as good as he got, saying “I think it’s very important to express, as president of Ireland, to say that the Irish people are antisemitic is a deep slander. To suggest because one criticises Prime Minister Netanyahu that one is antisemitic is such a gross defamation and slander.”

Juan Cole, “Pot’o’Gold,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v. 3, 2024

Higgins came to the same realization as everyone else who has been gaslighted by right-wing Zionists with their phony (and cynical) charges of Jew-hatred whenever anyone objects to Israeli war crimes:

“Originally… I put it down to lack of experience but I saw later that it was part of a pattern to damage Ireland.”

It is sort of like if families of victims murdered by mid-twentieth-century Vegas hit man Bugsy Siegel were accused of only complaining because they didn’t like Jews.

Higgins insisted that Ireland “cannot be knocked off our principle[d] support of international law.” He pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who has broken international law. [The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.]

The Irish president pointed out that the Israeli government is currently violating “the sovereignty of three of his neighbours.” That would be Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. If Saar had his way it would be four, and would include Egypt.

Higgins made the remarks as he accepted the credentials of the new Palestinian ambassador to Ireland. Ireland, Spain and Norway reacted to Israel’s Gaza genocide by recognizing the state of Palestine last May.

The Irish equivalent of The Onion, WW News, made up some amusing reactions. They had one person, asked about the departure of the Israeli embassy from Dublin, say, “Is this the first time the Israeli government has actually given up property?”

Another joke: “Since the embassy will be going spare, we can probably let Palestinian refugees move in?”*

—–

*Revised.

Spain is Europe’s champion at producing solar power, because some of its regions are especially sunny — think Seville. The Global Energy Monitor puts it this way: “The country has more utility-scale solar capacity in operation (29.5 GW) than any other European nation, and more capacity under construction (7.8 GW), and in early stages of development (106.1 GW) than the next three European countries combined.” They have 100 gigawatts of solar in development! That is all the solar capacity the US has now, and it is a much bigger and wealthier country.

Germany comes in second in Europe with 24.6 gigawatts of industrial-scale solar.

So far this year, renewables account for 57.5 percent of electricity in Spain, which is remarkable for an industrial democracy. Renewables only make 26% of American electricity, so Spain is doing twice as well as we are. Spain wants to get 74% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

Wind power provides 22.4 percent of Spain’s electricity, while solar is at 18.3 percent. Solar, however, is rapidly building out.

Spain has already produced more renewable energy by November this year than it did in the full 12 months of 2023, and production is up 13%. And, this is the second year in a row that renewables produced more electricity for Spain than did fossil fuels.

All this is not an accident. The Socialist government of Pedro Sánchez has an industrial policy when it comes to green energy. He credits outgoing Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, as having spearheaded the expansion of renewables since 2018, leading to some of Europe’s lowest electricity prices for consumers. Sunlight and wind are free, so once you have built the means to capture them, electricity generation is low-cost. This is especially true at a time when the Ukraine War has caused fossil gas prices to increase substantially, hurting countries dependent on it. Ribera is on her way to Brussels to serve on the European Commission, with portfolios in competitive practices and the environment.

In contrast, when they were in power Spain’s conservatives actually put a punitive tax on rooftop solar to benefit the fossil fuel corporations to which they are close.

All the research demonstrates that Socialist democracies make people happier than other systems, and now it turns out they are better for the health of the earth, as well.

Elections matter. But so do civil society initiatives. People are forming cooperatives to share the output of solar installations. Even football (soccer) teams have done this with solar panels at their stadiums.

Spanish utilities are increasingly creating hybrid solar parks that incorporate wind turbines and batteries, as well, to ensure steady power once the sun goes down. Spain has about 1 gigawatt worth of battery storage projects under review, and has a goal of 22.4 gigawatts of battery capacity by 2030 — a deadline that some experts believe the country will easily beat.

—-

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World: “60% of electricity in Spain comes from renewable energy”

(The Conversation) – The EU has stood in solidarity with Israel since the start of the war with Hamas, and has been consistent in saying the country has the right to defend itself. But the EU has always said that this has to be done in line with international law, which Israel has been accused of breaching.

In July 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advised that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was unlawful. Then, in October, Israel’s parliament voted to ban the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) from operating in Israel – and therefore Gaza. This ruling will only mean further suffering for the Palestinian people.

One month later, on November 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to issue arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.

Netanyahu and Gallant are wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the war in Gaza. And Deif is wanted on the same charges for crimes committed both in Israel and Palestine from October 7 onwards.

More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military since the start of the war than in any other conflict of an equivalent period over the past two decades. Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon are gradually causing some EU states to change their stance.

Shifting towards condemnation

Only five EU states – Belgium, Latvia, France, Estonia and Cyprus – were in favour of a resolution adopted by the UN general assembly in September that demanded Israel end “its unlawful presence” in the occupied territories of Palestine within 12 months. Bulgaria, Austria, Sweden, Italy and Germany abstained.

There has been a notable shift in the position of EU leaders since then. When Israeli forces fired on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon in October, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, denounced the incident as “unjustifiable”.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, then condemned the Israeli attacks and reiterated calls for sanctions against those responsible for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including two members of Netanyahu’s government, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“EU v. Israel,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland, 2024.

The UK, while not an EU state, is also considering sanctions on these two individuals over what Prime Minister Keir Starmer called “obviously abhorrent comments” they made about Palestinians in August. Smotrich said starving civilians in Gaza might be justified and Ben Gvir called perpetrators of settler violence in the West Bank “heroes”.

Some European states such as France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the UK have reduced arms sales to Israel. But despite these policies, there is no EU arms ban on Israel. In fact, Germany provides one-third of Israel’s arms, and has even increased these exports in the second half of 2024.

Yet in July 2024, the court said that states are “under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. This should arguably not only involve an EU ban on arms sales to Israel, but also a suspension of the EU’s trade agreement with Israel. Ireland and Spain have been pushing for the latter, but no decision has yet been taken.

The EU has the economic clout to hurt Israel’s economy. While Israel is only the EU’s 25th largest trading partner, the EU is Israel’s largest, and accounts for almost one-third of its trade in goods.

But EU sanctions look a way off at present. Austria, Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic are Israel’s closest allies in the EU, and it is very unlikely that they would vote in favour of sanctions.

That said, the recent arrest warrants are likely to have a powerful indirect effect. In May 2024, UN experts said that “the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk state complicity in international crimes”. So, EU states that continue to provide arms to Israel are arguably complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And even if the EU government itself does not ban arms sales, citizens can ask their own courts to enforce such a ban. This type of case is already occuring in the Netherlands.

The issue of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant also make it possible for the EU to establish a travel ban and impose financial sanctions against them. All EU member states are party to the ICC, and support the court’s work. On November 21, Borrell said the ICC warrants are “not political and the court decision should be respected and implemented”.

EU states are firmly in agreement that only a two-state solution will increase the chances of security and peace in the region. To make this a realistic prospect, more EU countries need to recognise the state of Palestine.

In the 1980s, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic all recognised Palestinian statehood. Sweden did in 2014, and Ireland, Spain and non-EU member Norway followed in 2024.

The EU’s responsibility for discussing these policies is all the more salient given Donald Trump’s return to the White House. His ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has previously said that Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank.

Many Palestinians in the West Bank believe the US election result will “make Israel even stronger”, with the prospect of a Palestinian state soon to be “off the table”.

Catherine Gegout, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Nottingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“France is committed to international justice and its independence,” Barrot said in an interview for France 3 TV channel.

“We have been saying from the very beginning that Israel has the right to defend itself within the framework of respect for international law.”

“Each time Israel violates international law, blocking access to aid, bombing civilians, forcibly displacing them, establishing colonies in the West Bank.”

He added they “strongly” condemn these actions.

Asked if he supported the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Barrot said: “I cannot put myself in the position of the court in any circumstance.”

Barrot argued that the ICC’s arrest warrant amounted to “the formalization of the accusation against certain politicians.”

Regarding the question of whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he visited France, Barrot said: “France will always apply international law.”

The ICC, in a landmark move on Thursday, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,000 people, most of them women and children.

It has also engaged in cross-border warfare with Lebanon, launching an air campaign in late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

Middle East Monitor

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——

Bonus Video Added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. What’s next? | The Take”

The two guards were tasked with securing the area ahead of a scheduled visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. This move reflects Israel’s insistence on continuing its actions that violate the historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem, stressing that Israel has no sovereignty over it.

The official spokesperson for the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sufyan Qudah, stressed in a statement the Kingdom’s absolute rejection of all Israeli measures aimed at changing the identity and character of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, and changing the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites.

He also reiterated the Kingdom’s support for France and its position against the attacks of the Israeli occupation forces.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

WION: “French FM Refuses To Enter Holy Site In Jerusalem In Protest | World News | WION”

All in all, 59% of German electricity, almost six tenths, has come from renewables this year, with hydro the main source aside from wind and solar. In 2023, renewables only accounted for 52% of Germany electricity, so there has been a substantial advance. Half of that advance came from new solar installations, Ember says.

An amazing 11 gigawatts of new solar capacity has been added this year. As of mid-summer, Germany had 92 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, exceeding its 2024 goal of 88 GW.

Through the end of July, fossil fuel electricity generation plummeted 14.5% from the same period in 2024, reaching the lowest levels on record. The consumption of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, fell by 39% through September of this year compared to the same months in 2023.

Germany’s carbon emissions dropped by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year, and are expected to fall again this year. If all industrialized countries met Germany’s performance, the climate crisis would be less severe. Energy-related carbon emissions in the US. fell last year, but only by 3%.

The rapid advance of solar, Ember explains, is the result of government policy changes, including the reduction in bureaucracy and easier permitting and “simplified grid connection for small PV systems,” as well as better remuneration for consumers who sell their electricity back into the grid.

“German Solar,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

Wind installations kept pace with those of the previous year, at 2.3 gigawatts. Wind-generated electricity was up 7% this year. Although wind’s progress was not as spectacular as that of solar, it still did make impressive advances, and there is a lot of capacity in the pipeline. Germany won’t quite meet its goals for total wind installations of 80 gigawatts this year, but those goals are the most ambitious in the European Union.

Winds have been anemic in the summer and fall, but are expected to pick up in the last two months of the year. Wind has had to be replaced with expensive fossil gas for the moment. Emissions will likely still fall, since electricity demand is lower. Wind plus battery will smooth out some of these fluctuations in the future.

There are also legal reasons for which wind will advance even more in future. Ember writes, “The German government has declared renewables to be in the overriding public interest, a privileged legal status which unlocks faster permitting and simplified procedures. Furthermore, German states are now required to allocate around 2% of their land for wind turbines.”

Ember doesn’t say so, but battery capacity is also rapidly increasing in Germany, where battery storage reached 9.9 gigawatts so far in 2024. Reuters reports that grid battery capacity in the country is up by 1/3 in 2024, an incredible advance. In the next two years, through the end of 2026, battery storage in Germany is set to increase five-fold, according to Clean Energy Wire. Battery storage allows solar energy to be captured during daylight and released at night.

CEW adds that “more than 80 percent of smaller photovoltaic rooftop systems are already being installed in combination with battery storage systems.” That combination is not nearly as common in the United States, but it should be.

Two big issues loom over Germany’s energy situation. One is the closure of the country’s nuclear plants at the insistence of the Green Party, which has been in government off and on (it is part of the present shaky coalition). Despite predictions of gloom and doom, the transition to wind, solar and battery has gone well.

Clean Energy Wire observes, “Decades of debates came to an end in April 2023, when Germany finally shuttered its last nuclear power plants after the energy crisis. One year on, predictions of supply risks, price hikes and dirty coal replacing carbon-free nuclear power have not materialised. Instead, Germany saw a record output of renewable power, the lowest use of coal in 60 years, falling energy prices across the board and a major drop in emissions.”

The other issue is the Ukraine War and Germany’s attempt to wean itself off Russian fossil gas. Germany cut its natural gas imports by nearly a third last year, and is pressing the EU to end imports of gas from Russia, still 20% of Europe’s usage. There isn’t any doubt that replacing both nuclear and fossil gas with wind, water, solar and battery is saving Germany money and allowing it energy independence from Russia.

In 2025, as Trump comes back into office, Americans should remember the cost savings offered by renewables, the environmental benefits of reducing carbon emissions and avoiding climate catastrophes, and the significance of energy independence for the US and its allies. Germany has overtaken Japan to become the world’s third largest economy.