Climate Plan implies coal exit - minister / Merkel seeks 4th term

The decision of 48 poorer countries to terminate coal-fired power production has sparked calls for Germany to envisage a speedy coal exit as well, the Rheinische Post newspaper reports. The announcement of the Climate Vulnerable Forum’s countries at the COP22 in Morocco to switch to 100 percent renewables by 2050 demonstrated that Germany was being “outpaced by more and more countries”, Martin Kaiser, from Greenpeace Germany, told the newspaper. He called for a German coal exit by 2030. The German Green Party’s climate spokesperson Annalena Baerbock said concrete deadlines for the coal industry “also need to be included in Germany’s Climate Action Plan”, according to the newspaper. Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary in the environment ministry (BMUB), said the coal exit perhaps needed to be done “sooner than some might think”, the Rheinische Post reported.

Read the article in German here.

For background on the role of the coal industry for Germany’s climate protection targets read the CLEW article Coal exit dispute delays Germany’s Climate Action Plan.

If the goal is to limit global greenhouse gas emissions, it is inefficient to break this down into individual national targets, writes Christoph M. Schmidt of Rhineland-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research (RWI Essen) in a guest commentary in Die Welt. The aim has to be to “save the next tonne of greenhouse gas emissions wherever the reduction cost is lowest”, and share the cost globally, according to Schmidt. He says that the German government should make use of its G-20 presidency to achieve a “global solution” for climate policy efforts.  

Read the guest commentary in German here.

Fiscal instruments should complement Energiewende efforts to fight populist criticism that climate protection was a luxury at the expense of the regular citizen, writes Bernhard Pötter in an opinion piece for tageszeitung (taz). “If citizens received a cheque labelled “Many thanks, your environment!” just before Christmas, people would see that ecologic and social policy pays off. Then, climate protectors would not have to tremble in fear of populists,” writes Pötter.

Slow sales of e-cars are caused by a lack of demand, not supply, VW CEO Matthias Müller told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview. “On the one hand, many Germans think and act green in their day-to-day lives, but when it comes to e-mobility, consumers are reticent,” Müller said. Renate Künast, former Green minister for consumer protection, called Müller’s statement “barefaced”: “No e-cars at affordable prices, no charging stations, but criticising non-buyers.”

Read the Müller interview in German here and Künast’s reaction here.

Find background in the CLEW factsheet Dieselgate forces VW to embrace green mobility.

E.ON is positioned to overcome its current crisis and record loss following the company’s split from its conventional energy business into the subsidiary Uniper, the German utility’s CEO Johannes Teyssen told Handelsblatt Online in an interview. “Admittedly, the consequences for our balance sheet are more severe than we would have thought two years ago”, Teyssen said. But he insisted E.ON’s “core business is making a profit” and that the company’s net assets were “clearly positive”, according to German commercial law. E.ON needed “two or three years of consolidation” before the utility’s shift towards renewable energies would be completed, he added. Asked whether E.ON’s competitor RWE pursued a better strategy by channelling its renewable business into the spin-off innogy, Teyssen answered that “battle will be decided by the customer”.

Read the interview in German (behind paywall) here. 

For more information on E.ON' strategic overhaul, see the CLEW factsheet E.ON shareholders ratify energy giant's split.