The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"Anne Will" on the Climate Package: Altmaier in the role of Defense Minister

2019-09-23T00:28:35.221Z


"Great litter or big disappointment?" Anne Will and her guests discussed the government's climate package. Economics Minister Peter Altmaier had to justify it - and was pretty much alone.



Focus on climate crisis

All articles | More information

Reporting on climate change is one of the major journalistic challenges of our time. The climate crisis is also one of the most important issues of humanity for SPIEGEL. For this reason, we support an international initiative that seeks to take a look this week: "Covering Climate Now" has been initiated by the Columbia Journalism Review and the Canadian newspaper "The Nation", with more than 200 media companies worldwide including the Guardian, El País, La Repubblica, The Times of India, Bloomberg or Vanity Fair. SPIEGEL is dedicating the cover story of the current issue to the climate crisis this week and every day pays special attention to mirror.de

A clear question, a clear answer for "Anne Will": Can the climate change package of the Federal Government achieve the climate goals? Ottmar Edenhofer, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: "No." For that reason, that was not just any "no" because Edenhofer was one of the experts who advised the Federal Government's Climate Cabinet on the way.

Theme of the evening: "The Climate Protection Package of the Federal Government - big hit or big disappointment?" That was the question at "Anne Will", two days after the presentation of the plans, two days after the big demonstrations for better climate protection.

Discussion result of the evening: This anticipated Claudia Kemfert early; She heads the Department of Energy, Transport, Environment at the German Institute for Economic Research. Kemfert said that the achievement was "disappointing", but it was "a start". Now every year must be readjusted. From a "big litter" but not even spoke Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier (CDU), who had to defend the package. That could be because the exclamation mark is generally not his favorite punctuation mark. But it could also be because he had gone on thin ice.

Video short analysis of the climate package: "GroKo is not capable of big litter"

Video

AXEL SCHMIDT / AFP; THE MIRROR

Sunday's peanut counting: how can you only invite four critics of the climate package - but only one defender, Altmaier? That was the big social media quiz question before. Well: you could. The question is, what would it have brought the discussion, next to him still another Cabinet member to set. Would they have twice as well defended the climate package? At any rate, no one spoke more frequently than he did.

Reply of the evening: It came from Ottmar Edenhofer. After the Chancellor was quoted saying that politics is doing "what is possible", he replied: "Politicians have not been able to do what is necessary". Although a CO2 price was decided. He was far too low - he had proposed five times - and lead "hardly to a change in behavior". The other agreed measures are not "coordinated" and "neutralize each other".

"It may be that politics has practiced the art of the possible, but it has not been able to do what is necessary," says Ottmar Edenhofer at #AnneWill about #Groko's #climate package. pic.twitter.com/uoaNWJbHx4

- ANNE WILL Talk Show (@AnneWillTalk) September 22, 2019

Defense of the evening: But the CO2 price would be "slowly, but steadily" higher, said Peter Altmaier - and that would be better than to expect the people in one fell swoop a hefty gasoline. What led to his key argument: "We also have a responsibility for social peace in this country." This was followed by the warning reference to the yellow-vein movement in France - the Bernd Ulrich, deputy editor of the "time", rejected immediately: There is a contradiction in the population, the climate protection advocated, but appropriate action not. This contradiction is "used by the government to do little".

The party-political discussion of the evening: It was created between the Greens chairman Annalena Baerbock and - logically - Altmaier. Baerbock criticized that the government may protect their package with "the climate in the GroKo", but the benchmark is the Paris Climate Agreement. Necessary is "an exit from fossil energy"; a system change in the areas of transport, agriculture, heat and power supply and energy. Instead, pull on two ends of the rope at the same time and wonder that nothing is moving. Altmaier said that the Greens did not do anything in their reign until 2005, except the nuclear phase-out - "and there was already climate change". What Baerbock did not want to leave, keyword: Law for the expansion of renewable energies: "That you have slowed down."

"For four years, this country has been waiting for the Paris Climate Agreement to act as a climate protection law," says @ABaerbock at #AnneWill. #Climate package pic.twitter.com/Ptt4bjW4FW

- ANNE WILL Talk Show (@AnneWillTalk) September 22, 2019

Killerswurf of the evening: A CO2 price is good, but you also need the regulatory, said Baerbock. "Ordnungsrecht," Anne Will explained to the audience, "is the new word for prohibition." Was not it the other way around?

Nice try of the evening: Altmaier argued that the initially low CO2 price is also useful because high gasoline prices are those that are most dependent on the car but have little money. Has the Union discovered social justice through climate policy? A "ghost debate", said Ottmar Edenhofer. There have been proposals to strike a balance. They were not picked up.

The Merkel criticism of the evening: Bernd Ulrich said that the Chancellor had not talked about comprehensive climate protection measures in the election campaign, but pretended that not much would happen. And now the legitimacy for a big litter is missing. The mild reform of 2019 will then have to be followed by a radical 2025 reform "and a brutal 2030". The split between parents and children in the climate debate was "a split that caused you," he said. Peter Altmaier swallowed it down.

Bouncers of the evening: Climate protection, Altmaier said, "now always on the agenda".

More about the climate crisis

OverviewAnswers to the ten most important questions about climate change

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2019-09-23

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.