German conservatives score poorly on climate in EU parliament – NGO ranking

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance scores poorly on climate protection in European Parliament votes, Florence Schulz reports for EurActiv. Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe ranked the CDU lower than the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), with the CSU performing still worse. All three came in the bottom third of the rankings, called “dinosaurs” by CAN. The rankings are based on 21 climate policy votes over the current legislative period. The CDU and CSU performed worse than average for parties in the EU’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group. CAN says while parties talk up their green credentials in the EU election campaign, their voting records tell another story. The EPP’s top candidate for president of the European Commission, Manfred Weber (CSU), scored just 17 percent for climate-friendly votes, despite describing climate change as the greatest challenge of his political generation. "We were surprised by the range of results – and how unambitious the CDU and CSU’s climate policy really is,” Elena Hofmann of German environmental NGO umbrella organisation DNR told EurActiv.