Climate action to become an opposition issue under next German gov’t – political advisor
Clean Energy Wire: Let's start with the election campaign: Climate protection was a prominent topic in the 2021 federal elections and the Greens, who are strongly committed to the issue, achieved their best federal election result to date. What changed in the 2025 election regarding climate protection in German politics?
Johannes Hillje: It has become less salient. Climate protection has played practically no role, despite increasing urgency and relevance. I think the traffic light coalition [the outgoing government made up of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the Free Democrats (FDP)], and especially the Greens, learned a lesson that climate protection is currently more of a deterrent than a mobiliser. In 2019, this was an issue with which you could mobilise people beyond traditional advocacy groups a great deal. At that time, none of the other parties wanted to put themselves in a bad position with respect to the Greens. This has now completely reversed. The Greens still seem to be the only party in favour of ambitious climate protection, but they were made a scapegoat over this during the previous parliamentary term.
What does this mean for climate action? Will measures such as reducing emissions or increasing CO2 costs be pursued with less ambition now because there is little to be gained from them politically?
I believe a conclusion across party lines was that the acceptance of climate policy suffered during the previous legislative period. Thus, for the time being, fewer programmes will be developed on this topic by the parties. One can assume that climate policy ambition will hit a plateau or even be scaled back, as it can be seen in the positions that the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) of Friedrich Merz have on combustion engines. The conclusion from the emotional debate about the heating law, which was associated with the Greens, was to place as few impositions as possible on voters’ lives when it comes to climate action.
In the wake of the large Fridays for Future demonstrations led by young people since 2019, climate protection had firmly reached the centre of society. What has led to climate protection now having a lower priority in society?
I think it was a development that started with the coronavirus pandemic and continued with the war against Ukraine. There we had a material turn in the attitudes and needs of society.
What do you mean by that?
Suddenly bread and butter issues became more important again. My guess for why that happened is that we failed to economise climate protection to the necessary levels. For example, people are prepared to invest in their education because they expect to earn more later in their job thanks to a higher level of education. This belief that “I'll pay in advance and get more in return later” does not exist in discussions around the environment. The pandemic caused incredible social insecurity to creep in and the war on Ukraine and inflation have exacerbated this feeling. Climate protection started to be perceived as an additional cost factor rather than an investment. In my opinion, these additional costs, which then gave rise to fears of losses, were underestimated. Social acceptance should have been placed at the beginning of climate protection, but this perhaps was incorrectly assessed by policymakers.
Could climate protection ultimately benefit from the fact that it has shifted out of the public limelight? Ultimately, Germany is legally obliged to achieve its climate targets – something that would not change if topic is removed from ideological discourse.
This is the same idea as “only Nixon could go to China” [ed. referring to the former US president Richard Nixon’s credibility when negotiating with the Chinese Communist Party as an outspoken anti-communist]. But that would assume you are already convinced that climate protection and decarbonisation is necessary at a very fast speed. When I see how the level of ambition is dropping, I wonder whether people still have the same understanding of climate targets. The question is: if you take climate protection out of the public eye, will it still be anchored in society as a whole?
Approaches differ even within Merz’s CDU/CSU, as shown for example by Hendrik Wüst, the state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, who has set the clear goal for his government of creating a climate-neutral industry state. Linking climate action with economic policy shows one way in which a conservative government can tackle decarbonisation proactively and with a positive vision. This very much taps into an existing industrial identity and can be transformed into a new form of ‘pride’ by industry actors. There are areas of climate policy that can probably be taken out of the limelight, but you cannot remove the issue from people's everyday lives. Instead, we should perhaps try to restore a positive attitude towards climate protection. I think it's time to de-culturalise the climate issue and economise it instead.
How did climate protection turn into a cultural battleground? Did populist parties such as the AfD help drive this?
In my opinion, the AfD is not able to set the debate on its own – it always needs help from the media or from other parties. And I believe the impression that climate protection is no longer that important to people is also a result of distorted survey methodology. If you are only allowed to name two issues that were crucial for you in the election, then you must weigh up one issue against another. Then it's more a question of salience than of importance. In polls with no rankings, on the other hand, climate protection has a consistently high approval rating. So, in my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to say that climate policy is no longer important to people.
Are we currently going in the wrong direction when it comes to climate protection?
Alongside my pessimistic perception of the situation, there is of course also a huge opportunity with the special fund. There is more money available than ever before, including for climate protection. One hundred billion euros for climate protection is a massive amount and that is an opportunity. However, the laws that will translate the investment volume into concrete measures are still missing. Now is the time to offer people a tangible vision of exactly what will happen with the money. Climate neutrality also plays a role here, as new infrastructure enables a climate-neutral society.
How important will climate action ultimately be for the next government?
I think the CDU/CSU is not going to focus on it. Regardless of whether they pursue effective climate protection or not, it is not an identity issue for the conservative alliance, although the protection of mother earth and the homeland is a very conservative idea. The SPD, on the other hand, will probably try to claim that it is the force for climate protection in this government, as they compete with the Greens for the same groups of voters. Yet, my prediction is that climate will become an opposition issue, especially for the Greens and the Left.
I also believe that it can become a stronger issue for civil society again – and see an opportunity for anger to change sides now. We have recently seen a lot of anger, in particular from the AfD. If other issues lose relevance and we manage to utilise this space for climate protection, then there is potential for bringing people onto the streets. Movements function very strongly in opposition to an enemy. I would say that Friedrich Merz is well suited as an adversary when it comes to climate.
Merz has firmly ruled out cooperating with the far-right party at the federal level. However, the discussion about breaching the “firewall” that separates the CDU/CSU and the AfD has been fuelled time and again in recent years. Can the AfD ultimately become a partner for the CDU?
This will be decided in the next four years. I believe Friedrich Merz is not willing to cooperate with the AfD, but it is possible that if the CDU falls below 25 percent at the end of this legislative period, Merz's path will be declared a failure. Others in the CDU/CSU who are open to working with the AfD could then assert themselves.
