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Disastrous climate policy: the government just doesn't want

2020-12-20T19:13:48.973Z


There have been many pious declarations of the value of science and pledges to do more to address the climate crisis this year. Now it turns out that the government has absolutely no desire to do this.


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Photo: Alex Kraus / Bloomberg Creative / Getty Images

Last week, at an international climate summit, Alok Sharma, the British Minister for Economic Affairs, asked whether they had done enough together to fulfill the Paris Agreement.

"Friends, we have to be honest with each other," said the Conservative, "the answer to that question is currently: no."

Christian Stöcker, arrow to the right

Photo: SPIEGEL ONLINE

Born 1973, is a cognitive psychologist and has been a professor at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) since autumn 2016.

There he is responsible for the "Digital Communication" course.

Before that, he headed the Netzwelt department at SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Sharma will chair the next UN climate conference in Glasgow in November 2021.

Like many other conservative politicians, he has long since understood that climate policy is neither “left” nor “green”, but existential.

And that time is getting scarcer.

Talk like that, act differently

Sharma's German counterpart Peter Altmaier said in August that he admitted that "we have made mistakes in recent years and acted too late."

There is an enormous amount of catching up to do in terms of climate policy.

At the beginning of September Altmaier tweeted: "With the new EEG, our electricity will be 100 percent climate-neutral."

Meanwhile, Altmaier's ministry was working on an amendment to this Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

The minister must have known long ago that it was not even enough to even achieve the federal government's previous climate targets.

Billions for corporations, financed by taxpayers

In addition, there is a passage hidden in the law that is intended to protect corporations such as Evonik, Covestro or Daimler from repayments of billions.

The costs of the energy transition are once again being shifted from the shareholders of large listed companies to the taxpayer.

The federal government undermines the steering effect of its own laws where it really matters.

The new climate goals of the European Union will further widen the gap between aspiration and reality of German climate policy.

Who should still take us seriously?

How should a Germany that acts like this be taken seriously in the bitterly necessary negotiations with the major emitters China, the USA and India?

On Friday, Altmaier thought that his ministry was being treated badly because UN Secretary General António Guterres had said such friendly things in the Bundestag.

Now Guterres is a diplomat, and when he speaks in the parliament of an important Member State, he just says nice things.

Altmaier, however, tweeted that Guterre's speech showed that "the general condemnations of some activists were wrong."

The minister hears what he wants to hear

But it wasn't just “a few activists” who tore the EEG amendment apart.

But also very well-informed specialist journalists such as Frank Dohmen and Susanne Götze, and experts such as the chairman of the Agora Energiewende think tank.

Background information, research results and the latest developments on the climate crisis: every week directly in your e-mail. 

Register now.

Guterres, who is a diplomat, also said in the Bundestag: "At the next climate conference in Glasgow, all nations must have even better goals." Note the "all".

It can be assumed that the Secretary General knew that, even with the new EEG, which he diplomatically did not mention, Germany would not even be able to meet its old goals.

But Altmaier heard what he wanted to hear.

Brown coal study kept under lock and key

That fits in with the third scandalous report on the subject of energy policy this week: On Wednesday, Stefan Schultz reported here at SPIEGEL that Altmaiers Ministeriale kept an expensive report on open-cast lignite mining under lock and key for a year.

It calculates that five villages will not actually have to give way to the Garzweiler II open-cast lignite mine by 2028, as is still planned.

The mere fact that entire areas of land will continue to be destroyed in Germany for years in order to dig the dirtiest of all energy sources out of the ground is a scandal.

And then the Ministry of Economic Affairs hides tax-funded findings that make this approach appear in an even worse light.

There is a parallel to the German auto industry.

The fact that German corporations have built technical fraud systems into millions of cars over the years brought them little more than a frown from Berlin.

Climate and economic policy suicidal

The quarrel with the coal industry, with energy-intensive industries and with the auto industry results in a fatal pattern: Contrary to what has been repeatedly asserted, the current federal government apparently has no real interest in the absolutely fundamental restructuring that Germany will inevitably and very quickly have to go through, take seriously.

Instead, she pampers dying industries and dying business models with backroom deals and favors.

This is suicidal not only in terms of climate policy, but also in terms of economic policy.

The decarbonization of the world economy will come, and if it goes well, far faster than currently expected.

A growing number of countries will ban internal combustion engines in a few years.

Either we are fit then or we are not

German industry will then either belong to those who are ideally positioned with energy-efficient production, with expertise in the field of renewable energies, storage technologies and green hydrogen for industrial applications, with excellent products for the mobility of the future - or not.

The federal government seems to be actively working on the latter scenario at the moment, influenced by whisperers from the fossil fuel industries.

It is quite possible that the ultimate aim is to provide the Union with enough power to negotiate coalition with the Greens next autumn.

But there is simply no more time for such tactical games.

The CO2 budget that mankind can still blow into the atmosphere until the 1.5 degree target can no longer be met will last for another seven years.

Seven years.

That is not even two legislative terms.

In Berlin one still doesn't seem to want to understand that.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2020-12-20

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