Focus on climate crisis
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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" was initiated by the Columbia Journalism Review and the Canadian newspaper "The Nation", with more than 200 media companies around the world, 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
The SPD environmental politician Matthias Miersch has recently tried to raise the bar for Friday a bit deeper: To believe that on this day "the climate has been saved or gone down," was wrong, said the Deputy Bundestag faction leader.
The Social Democrat is undoubtedly right about that - even if the Union and the SPD were to make a big hit, which Miersch still hopes for. The GroKo wants this Friday to decide a package that equips the German climate policy with a kind of turbo. Measures leading to significantly lower CO2 consumption in Germany. But the implementation into concrete laws will take until the end of the year, the expected effect even later.
Friday is still a fateful day for the coalition: the GroKo must prove that it can deliver against all criticism. Namely on a topic that had none of the three coalition partners in recent years in focus.
This has changed only in the past few months. Meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel calls the threats of climate change a "challenge to mankind", CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and CSU leader Markus Söder outdo each other in environmentalist rhetoric, and SPD vice-chancellor Olaf Scholz sometimes speaks like a green guy.
Fight for the climate - and against the green competition
Climate change can no longer be ignored by the Union and the SPD because it is undoubtedly there. But they also saw the need for action because Greta Thunberg's "Fridays for Future" movement (FFF) has mobilized so many young people in Germany against the government and at the latest after the European elections in early May showed that the Greens the GroKo parties more dangerous become.
On September 20, everything will culminate: The FFF activists want to get as many climate-stricken people on German streets and squares as never before - and the Climate Cabinet of the Federal Government wants to give appropriate answers.
How to do that will be discussed again on Thursday evening in the coalition committee, after the union and SPD gathered their respective ideas in recent weeks. There is still no agreement in central points, there is dissent, above all, in the type of CO2 pricing, the extent of rules and prohibitions, as well as the path to the planned electricity share of 65 percent of renewable energies by 2030. The SPD environmental politician Miersch even sees this as the "most difficult point in the negotiations". And about the financing of spending - between 40 and 50 billion are likely to be in the coming years - so far, there is no consensus.
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There is still a great deal of concern, especially on the Union side, that it would be too much to turn a section of the citizens against them. The survey by the Allensbach Institute, which was just published in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", was presented to the members of the CDU and CSU parliamentary group leaders two weeks ago: 48 percent of respondents are not prepared to pay higher energy prices for climate protection. On the other hand, it is clear that only with support and rewards for environmentally friendly behavior, it will not work, you know that in the Union. Without hurting anyone, you will not be able to reduce CO2 significantly.
But if necessary, they will just sit together until Friday morning to get an agreement. Because the coalition is fighting this week not only for the climate and against the green competition - but above all for their own survival.
Early GroKo-Revision
Actually, the so-called revision of the GroKo, which was recorded in the coalition agreement as "stocktaking", should be made in the coming weeks. But in truth it is due this Friday. And the Union and SPD have no choice but to come together. None of the key players has an interest in the premature end of the coalition:
- Angela Merkel would like to continue as GroKo chancellor until the end of the legislative period 2021.
- CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer has first to stabilize again in office, the emerging at the break of the coalition chancellor candidate debate with a view to possible new elections would be extremely inconvenient.
- CSU leader Söder wants to govern in Bavaria in peace as Prime Minister and has there in six months also to deny a local election.
- SPD Vice-Chancellor Scholz advertises in the candidacy for the party leadership with his solidity as Minister of Finance, also he sees from this office good chances to compete in the next federal election as a Social Democratic chancellor candidate.
They all want to continue GroKo. What they need is therefore not just an agreement on Friday - but more. So what, if they end up even a package succeeds, which is not immediately torn by the Greens and the environmental associations in the air?
Then, not only would the coalition do more for the climate and hurt the Greens in their very own realm, it would even create a kind of reboot. Hurray, we are still alive, then would be the message.
But at the moment these are all conjunctive.