The good news is, that for this year so far, 38% of the electricity in Germany comes from renewable sources. Solar and Wind generation capacity is still growing. But the big energy companies like to use their paid-off coal plants, as it is profitable, and politics isn't currently putting much pressure onto them to stop it. As coal plants cannot be quickly switched on or off, Germany is exporting a lot of electricity into the neighbor countries - whenever the sum out of the renewable sources and the coal produces an electricity surplus. From time to time we even have negative rates at the electricity exchanges.

There is a very quick way to reduce the carbon footprint: use more gas plant. They exist, but they are mostly idle, as gas costs more than coal. Using them rather than the coal plants would have several instant effects: gas produces less pollution, and produces less CO2 than coal for the same amount of energy. Also, much less electricity would be produced, as gas plants can be throttled fast enough to avoid overproduction.

So the carbon could be down quickly, only requiring to be less protective to the coal jobs and the energy companies revenues.