Climate economist to become fourth co-head of Germany’s coal commission – report

The commission tasked with planning the phase-out of coal-fired power production in Germany will get a climate expert as its fourth co-leader, Malte Kreutzfeldt reports in the Tageszeitung (taz). The climate and energy economist Barbara Praetorius is said to join the so-called coal commission after environmental organisations and opposition parties had criticised that the original cast of three politicians as commission leaders showed bias towards the interests of Germany’s coal industry. Praetorius teaches at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and was deputy director at the German energy policy think tank Agora Energiewende.* The cabinet’s decision on launching the commission has been postponed two times already but, according to Kreutzfeld, it will likely stick to its third launching date on Wednesday, 30 May. A spokesperson at the German economy and energy ministry (BMWi) told the Clean Energy Wire it was not sure whether the commission could be launched at the scheduled date as negotiations were still in full swing. The spokesperson also declined to confirm that a fourth co-leader had been found for the commission.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read the CLEW article Germany gears up for official talks on coal phase-out.

*Like the Clean Energy Wire, Agora Energiewende is a project funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Climate Foundation.