Unions, Green MP: Coal exit through climate plan commission “depends on election result”

A plan for an exit from coal-fired power generation in Germany will not necessarily be the result of the structural commission agreed by the current government in the country’s climate action plan 2050. That was the claim made by Michael Vassiliadis, head of miners’ union IGBCE, as well as Green member of parliament Oliver Krischer at a conference of the Boell Foundation, which is linked to the Green Party. “Let’s see how the election turns out,” he said with respect to the set-up of the government after September's federal vote. Vassiliadis said he opposed a planned coal exit, especially as lignite mining and use would come to an end by the middle of the century anyway. Germany’s environment ministry had originally put a commission to deal with the details of a coal exit into the country’s long-term strategy plan to decarbonise the economy. But the mandate of the commission for “Growth, Structural Change and Regional Development” to be set up in 2018 was broadened without explicitly mentioning coal at all.

Find details on how green pioneer Germany struggles to meet its own climate targets in a CLEW dossier, including factsheets on the Climate Action Plan 2050 and the question “when the country might ditch coal”.