From KlimaNachrichten

By KlimaNachrichten Editor

By Frank Bosse

You’ll probably be amazed to read this!
Of course, masks (“mouth/nose protection”) can help prevent infections when used correctly, that is obvious.
However, a study from 2023 showed that they do not bring any significant benefits when used millions of times (“in real life”). This explicitly refers not to individual cases, but to broad application in a large population. The transmission paths are too complex, the possible user errors too great, too many other influences are involved.

Note: The purely physical properties of a single measure (in this case the obligation to wear a mask to prevent infection) are not only decisive for whether this also offers a measurable advantage in real application.

What about energy from solar and wind, or “renewable energies” (RE) for short?

First of all, the same applies here: they produce low-CO2 electrical energy, can thus replace any carbon combustion and, of course, are suitable for reducing the CO2 emission factor (g CO2/ kilowatt hour produced) in energy production. However, as with masks during waves of infection such as Covid-19, many other factors are at work.

So what does the whole thing look like in Europe? For this purpose, the average share of RE and the CO2 emission factors of August 2025 in 29 European countries were evaluated, the data comes from “Electricity Maps“.

The result is surprising only at first glance:

The trend (dashed) has a zero slope. This means that in practice, the share of RE in Europe has a 0.00% effect on the CO2 emission factor (the “R²”).

Other influences are too high. The Scandinavian countries can use a lot of hydropower (also low-CO2), as can the Alpine countries of Austria and Switzerland. France uses a lot of nuclear power, as do Slovakia and Hungary.

Poland burns a lot of carbon despite a share of around 29% RE, Bosnia with a much lower share of RE almost as much.

Greece has the highest share (in summer) of RE (52%, but 31.5% of it is photovoltaic), so it has to burn a lot of natural gas at night. The situation is similar in the Netherlands. This is quite different in France with only 15% RE, but also a lot of CO2-neutral electricity generation from nuclear power.

After all, Germany has a monthly average of 45% RE (quite exactly in line with the “Agora” value of 46%), but is nevertheless higher in the CO2 emission factor than Great Britain or Bulgaria and well above the Central European average. The month of August 2025 has also been a very “RE-friendly” one with quite a lot of solar production.

In the end, the conclusions are similar: Although masks have been shown to reduce the risk of infection, this does not have a significant effect on a large cohort in practical use. And although renewable energies are able to generate CO2-neutral electricity, this also has no effect on what counts in the end: the climate impact via CO2 emissions. In addition, we have not seen a significant downward trend in the CO2 factor in Germany since 2019, despite some jubilant news and a growing share of renewable energies, we reported. Now it becomes clear why!

So when the amazed audience in this country is drummed into it again and again:

“Everything on RE so that we don’t destroy the climate any further!”

That’s how it is, to put it mildly, quite naïve. The many other influences of “real life” are completely left out. The reality in Europe says it all.