Env min: diesel software update not enough /Anti-coal protests heat up

Police in the western German city of Aachen are worried that the planned anti-coal protests in the Rhineland mining region next week could turn violent, Reiner Burger reports for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Dirk Weinspach, chief of Aachen’s police, said he did not intend to sweepingly criminalise all 7,000 expected anti-coal protesters, but a small minority of activists were attempting to “trivialise” criminal action, Burger writes.

See the CLEW factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal? for more information.

Many parties avoided clear messages on a lignite phase-out in their election programmes, but “coal does not have reliable friends in any of the parties, anymore”, writes Klaus Stratmann in an article for Handelsblatt. Party programmes lack “coherent concepts” on the future of coal or the energy taxes and levies system, Stratmann writes.

Read the article (behind paywall) in German here.

For background on the general elections, read the CLEW dossier Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende. On Germany’s coal, read the factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal?

The environment and the energy transition is not among the most important topics for Germans in the upcoming general elections, according to a survey by YouGov. 53 percent of respondents called it extremely or very important for their decision who to vote for, putting it in 10th place. Pension and retirement (74 percent), social security (73 percent), protection from criminality and terrorism (72 percent) and healthcare (71 percent) were the most important topics, according to the study.

Find a press release and the survey for download in German here.

For background, read the CLEW dossier Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende.

Diesel technology has long been hailed as a climate-friendly alternative to petrol but has suddenly come under intense fire, amounting to “a broadside against Germany’s leading industry,” Alfred Gaffal, president of Bavarian industry association vbw, writes in a guest article for Handelsblatt.  “Of course, reducing emissions as much as possible is an incontestable goal and in the best interests of people and the environment,” Gaffal says. But “sweeping driving bans” and abolishing diesel engines “are no solution”. Research into alternative engines ought to be supported, but “a quota for e-cars imposed by law” would be equivalent to “a planned economy” which could “not dissipate customers’ doubts and reservations,” Gaffal says. Individual measures like a quota are not helpful, he writes, arguing that meaningful climate protection requires a “comprehensive concept” to integrate clean electricity generation and electric mobility.

See the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers and the CLEW interview “Diesel summit comes two years too late” with ICCT Europe director Peter Mock for more information.

Digital meter readers are gradually becoming mandatory in German households but many residents are unsure how they benefit from the technology, or how safely it treats their power consumption data, Dagmar Fischbach writes for Rheinische Post. “Smart meters” are meant to allow better control of electricity use and will be mandatory in every German household by 2032, Fischbach says. But what's helpful for commercial power customers might make less sense for private households, she writes. “Even if I know that the power for my electric kitchen stove is most expensive around noon, I won’t be able to just skip cooking,” Werner Fliescher of homeowner association Haus und Grund argues.

Read the article in German here.

For more information on “smart” technologies and the energy transition, see the CLEW dossier The digitalisation of the Energiewende.