Two or three guests less: that could have been interesting. Who knows in which spheres one would have landed if one had decided to talk as concretely as possible about CO2 pricing.
But there was not enough time to remove the surface layers. A recurring talk dilemma. The key question for "Maybrit Illner" was whether "our consumption destroys the planet". A rhetorical question that promptly no one denied, but the trips to various areas of the large climate complex made possible.
The usual minibus full of guests had arrived: Claudia Kemfert, Professor of Energy Economics and Sustainability, working at the German Institute for Economic Research; FDP leader Christian Lindner; the Green Party Chairman Annalena Baerbock; star chef Nelson Müller; Arndt Günter Kirchhoff, President of the National Association of Business Associations North Rhine-Westphalia; and science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar.
The price question of the evening: That CO2 should have a price, it was quickly agreed. The issue was which CO2 pricing was the right one.
Claudia Kemfert said: "We have to pay the bill for what we do to the world," she said, calling for the "radical cost truth": The climate damage caused by the production of goods would have to be priced into it - which would mean then that products would be more expensive; but that would also have a steering effect.
What FDP leader Lindner said sounded similar at first - but there were decisive differences: "How do we achieve our climate goals as cheaply as possible?" That was the question for him. He emphasized the self-regulation of the market: "If we actually labeled CO2 in meat", it would be calculated that soy cultivated in Brazil would be a CO2-intensive feed, then "suddenly other feeds would be sought" - for example feed from insects , He considers that a CO2 tax is wrong. "That's better for the market than politics."
"Incentives for afforestation instead of cutting down" - For "new business models" to prevent slash-and-burn in the Amazon region, the FDP chairman @c_lindner pleads
The whole program: ➡️ https://t.co/GyUqExRE4y
@ZDFheute #illner #Amazonas #Climate # CO2 tax #Regenwald pic.twitter.com/Pf7AxPvmrO
Contradiction between Kemfert and Annalena Baerbock: "We need all the instruments there are," she said. The fact that the market does not set the "economic guard rails" adequately, one can see from the fact that the "fossil forms" still dominated: The energy and transport change would be impossible without the policy and a clear regulatory law.
An import stop for soy and beef from new slash-and-burn land in Brazil was demanded by Greens leader @ABaerbock at "maybrit illner".
The whole program: ➡️ https://t.co/GyUqExRE4y #Rainforest #Free Trade #Mercosur # beef #Soja #Brazil #illner #Brandrodung pic.twitter.com/SVwFVLnFc2
The system question of the evening: It would have been possible at this point to get deeply involved in the admittedly challenging details of CO2 taxation and emissions trading, which Lindner prefers. But the round did not get much further at this point - for "How exactly?" - or "Say an example?" - questions lacked the airiness. "We're doctoring around little things here," Baerbock said at some point, as Nelson Müller had just talked about the waste of meat and Illner had raised the question of whether sausage "the cigarette of the future" is. It was about switching the agricultural system to "sustainable agriculture": no farmer wanted to torture his animals and contaminate the groundwater. That was only the result of the existing support system.
The wide view of the evening: came from Lindner - Klima as a global, not German question: "In the ban world of Ms. Baerbock no Chinese will follow us, maybe in the technology world," he said. He also warned against the "raised index finger", which he always noticed when someone does not rely solely on market mechanisms. However, this time he avoided Baerbock over any GDR comparisons, unlike in December, when the two already talked about climate policy.
And the Amazon? That it is an emotional event, when the rainforest burned, communicated the Illner editorship in a feature film with exquisite violin sounds. TV physicist Ranga Yogeshwar promoted appreciating the uniqueness of the planet as much as the art market appreciated van Gogh for his uniqueness. Claudia Kemfert demanded to put the rainforest "under monument protection". One has leverage against Brazil's President Bolsonaro, said Baerbock: if you do not import soy and beef from areas cleared in the rainforest. Lindner again: "The Chinese, the Brazilians will not let their growth take" - if "we" would not trade with Brazil, "others will do it".
Nelson Müller: Around the slash-and-burn in the Amazon region we also have to lead an ethical debate about our meat consumption.
The whole program: ➡️ https://t.co/GyUqExRE4y #Amazonas #Climate # CO2 tax #meat tax #Rain forest #illner pic.twitter.com/k6xtzSFZvY
And star chef Nelson Müller said that meatless dishes "can entertain people as well".