“Short-sighted cost-fixation”

Germany’s Federal Court of Auditors has shown shortsightedness and a lack of understanding in implying that the energy transition is “too expensive” and therefore needs “limitation”, Malte Kreutzfeldt writes in a commentary for Tageszeitung (taz). The auditors often “equate expenditures with costs – without considering which of these could create savings elsewhere, and which investments would have been required if there were no Energiewende,” Kreutzfeldt writes. Decelerating or even halting the project if it became too expensive also ignores the scientific fact that climate change exists and the international commitments Germany has entered to counteract it, he adds. While taxpayers’ and electricity customers’ money should of course be used efficiently, the Energiewende needs “massive boosting instead of slackening” to meet the challenges, Kreutzfeldt says.

Read the commentary in German here.

For background, read the CLEW article Government lacks overview of Energiewende costs – auditors.