Majority of Germans agree next govt should ramp up climate protection efforts – survey

A majority of people in Germany (53%) agree that the next government should do more for climate protection, according to a survey commissioned by environmental NGO umbrella organisation Climate-Alliance Germany. Support was fractured along party lines: most voters of the Green party, the Social Democrats (SPD), the Left Party and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) agreed with the statement, while less than half of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), the nationalist-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) voters did.

Most respondents (67%), regardless of party affiliation, agreed with the statement that the next government should increase investments in Germany's decaying infrastructure, even if this meant taking on more debt. Three quarters agreed that the state should make more provisions to provide municipalities with financial disaster aid in an emergency, for example in the event of flooding or other extreme weather disasters.

"Every euro spent on climate protection and modern infrastructure creates sustainable jobs, strengthens energy security and improves the quality of life," said Viviane Raddatz, head of climate and energy policy at WWF Germany. "Whatever we don't invest today, we will have to spend two or three times as much on climate impact costs tomorrow." Raddatz added that this was reason enough to aim for a reform of the country's debt brake, the constituonal limit on new government borrowing that was partly responsible for the collapse of chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government in November, which could not agree on alternative ways to finance a string of climate and energy policy measures.

Calls for a reform of the government’s credit limit, which was put into the constitution in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009, came quickly after a court ruling in late 2023 declared 60 billion euros in planned borrowing for climate and transformation projects as unconstitutional. The ruling SPD – as well as representatives from the Green party, research institutes and civil society groups – have said the debt brake is no longer fit for purpose and would hinder urgently needed investments in future projects. However, the FDP and the CDU said they largely want to stick to the debt limit.