Berlin Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) is saying goodbye to the world stage in terms of climate policy with an urgent plea for global pricing of CO2 emissions. “With such a CO2 price we can get the industry, our economy, to find the technologically best and most efficient ways to achieve climate neutrality,” said the outgoing Chancellor on Monday at the start of the world climate conference in Glasgow.
“We will not make progress with government activities alone,” Merkel said. A comprehensive transformation of life and business is required. She spoke of a “decade of action”. It is about being more ambitious nationally, but finding global instruments that not only use taxpayers money, but are also economically sensible – and that is CO2 pricing for them.
“We are not where we have to go,” she warned the international community, which is trying to reverse the trend in climate protection over the next few days. The world expects “that we will be better off at the end of this Glasgow conference”. It is about the climate goals, but also technical questions about how the goals can be measured in a more binding manner.
According to Merkel, the effects of climate change are devastating: “We must, and I also say that we can implement the Paris Climate Agreement – and not just in the course of this century, but in the middle of this 21st century.”
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The message from the Chancellor on this day is as urgent as it is seldom. But in their climate policy balance there is a big gap between aspiration and reality. The natural scientist Merkel warns that the scientific evidence requires even greater haste in climate protection.
Manager of the feasible
But the politician Merkel sees herself as a manager of what is feasible. She calls the climate protection movement “Fridays for Future” a positive “driving force” and at the end of her chancellorship admits that “not enough has happened” in terms of climate protection.
At the same time, she emphasized at her summer press conference in July that the movement was not the only opinion that existed in Germany. Your job as Chancellor is to fight for parliamentary majorities for climate protection.
As long as it is a matter of defining new goals, Germany is at the forefront of the movement worldwide. The Merkel government uses the historic decision of the Federal Constitutional Court from the end of April 2021 as a ballast.
The already ambitious Climate Protection Act of 2019 will be tightened significantly within a few weeks: Germany has set itself the goal of becoming climate neutral by 2045 – earlier than any other country in the world. The annual savings targets for the individual sectors are tightened. Can that even work?
In Merkel’s eyes, the verdict is a “great success” and “groundbreaking”. It has encouraged them to find parliamentary majorities for a stronger CO2 reduction. What she doesn’t say: If some goals turn out to be unattainable in practice, then you have to readjust. But that will no longer be Merkel’s problem.
Angela Merkel was shown a drastic consequence of climate change: the melting of the Eqi glacier.
(Photo: dpa)
Merkel’s pragmatism is legend. He tarnishes her balance sheet as climate chancellor. It proclaims ambitious goals, but is ready to make concessions in practice. For example, when the German carmakers rebel against plans to tighten the CO2 limit values. Or when the industry feels that it is being restricted by strict reduction targets in the European emissions trading system.
She herself balanced it as follows in July: Germany reduced CO2 emissions by 20 percent from 1990 to 2010, and by a further 20 percent from 2010 to 2020. And for the period up to 2030, a further reduction of 25 percent has been set as the goal. So “a lot happened”.
In terms of the Paris goal of staying well below two degrees global warming and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees, “not enough has happened,” she admits. This applies not only to Germany, but to “very, very many countries” in the world.
In recent years, Merkel has understood how to advance the issue of climate protection on the international stage. She has used her role as a globally respected head of government to encourage other countries to become more involved.
In 2007, when Merkel had only been Chancellor for two years, she brought the subject to the fore at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, in 2015 also at the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau – and in general on all opportunities around the globe, not least in Brussels.
That alone, their critics also admit, may have contributed to keeping political attention for climate protection high.
A haunting message, a mixed record
Climate protection is one of the few topics that Merkel seems to really care about. The Chancellor, who rarely lets her emotions run free, is acting here with full conviction. The topic accompanies her entire political life.
In 1994 she became Federal Environment Minister, in 1995 she chaired the first world climate summit in Berlin, and in 1997 she was involved in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, the first climate agreement with which the industrialized countries undertook to reduce their emissions in a legally binding manner. She can’t let go of the subject. In 2007 Merkel traveled to Greenland with Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), then Federal Environment Minister, to be photographed in front of icebergs.
Photos of iconic power are created. That cannot be said of very many Merkel pictures. At this time the term “climate chancellor” was coined.
But those who honestly assess Merkel’s climate policy will come to mixed results. Instead of making the cause of climate change, greenhouse gases such as CO2, more expensive and thus reducing them with taxes, levies or certificate trading, the German government has concentrated on generating electricity for far too long with the energy transition.
Other important greenhouse gas emitters such as traffic or buildings were not given sufficient attention. The results of the energy transition are almost tragic. While alleged climate offenders like the USA pragmatically replaced their coal-fired power plants with natural gas-powered systems and thus reduced CO2 emissions, Germany focused entirely on unreliable electricity production from solar and wind.
If the sun is not shining or if there is little wind, we still switch on our dirty coal-fired power plants. Merkel’s decision in 2011 to shut down all nuclear power plants, which in retrospect appeared to be panicked, takes revenge.
The energy transition relies on emotions and has so far cost hundreds of billions of euros. The socially disadvantaged strata of society bear a great burden. The high electricity prices hit them harder than those with higher incomes.
More: The United States put on an unworthy spectacle at the world climate conference