Berlin The glass wall left unveiled the state of affairs with Federal Climate Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP): Both had been sitting next to each other for almost an hour in the small meeting room of the national charging infrastructure control center. The ministers looked serious, with only their entourage around them, while the head of the control center gave a lecture and the writing on the wall was emblazoned: “Simply charge, we’re working on it.” This was followed by graphics showing what was missing for the proclaimed electrification of road traffic : Charging stations including their performance, the associated electric cars and trucks.
Then Habeck took the floor, leaned forward, talked, raised his voice, checked with his experts, discussed with the small group. Minister Wissing looked ahead, tapped his fingertips together again and again, then he said something, was silent again, talked. The glass wall swallowed the words. Later that Friday, Habeck would say publicly: “The federal government has to come together.”
It was a crisis meeting that dealt with a central project of the federal government: climate protection. By 2030, Germany must avoid carbon dioxide three times as fast as before. The transport sector alone has to save more than a quarter billion tons by law and can then only emit half of what it was in 2019 – even though more people and goods are on the move every year. Electrification was the political magic word; a “master plan” for the charging infrastructure should point the way. If only there weren’t constant arguments about the direction.
Transport Minister Wissing has long wanted to get his “Master Plan Charging Infrastructure 2” – a continuation of the plans of his predecessor Andreas Scheuer (CSU) – through the cabinet. But Habeck’s officials intervened again and again. There was even a veto by the house management – without justification for Wissing’s officials. As if that weren’t enough, the economy complained that the project was a planned economy. And the municipalities declined to be held responsible for the success of the federal plan.
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This has been going back and forth for months. Everyone knows how important decisions are in order to still achieve the climate goals. Instead, however, the government apparatus gets stuck in the details. In the case of the charging stations, this is also due to poorly distributed responsibilities: It is not Energy Minister Habeck who is responsible for setting up charging stations in the state, but Infrastructure Minister Wissing.
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Habeck’s officials have to change energy law, for example, and also ensure that local companies rebuild their power grids. 870 distribution grids need to be prepared for the electromobility era so that they maintain the voltage and there are no blackouts. The charging station itself is at best the visible symbol of the turn away from fossil fuels – but not the Herculean task.
On the other hand, Minister of Economics Habeck is responsible for providing electric cars, with which Transport Minister Wissing is supposed to achieve his climate goals. “We have very, very ambitious plans,” says Habeck, adding that at least 15 million fully electric cars will be on the road by 2030. The lavish purchase bonuses are now to be phased out. In return, the FDP and with it the car industry insisted that the company car privilege should not be touched. The argument for the deal is that the industry has to fund its transformation somehow. Will he rise?
Wissing himself no longer believes in the 15 million target that he himself announced at the beginning of the year: “We live in a market economy, there are no automobile quotas,” he says today. The number is “part of a concept to achieve the climate goals in the transport sector”. The aim is “compliance with the climate targets”. In the end, however, the citizens would decide on their mobility “and not the politicians”.
However, there are doubts that the government will achieve its climate goals in this way – and whether the transport minister wants to achieve them. The Liberals, for example, provoked a veritable coalition turmoil by continuing to push for e-fuels when Europe decided to phase out the internal combustion engine by 2035. The end is coming, but the hope of giving synthetic fuels made from eco-energies and thus the combustion process a small chance is only dying last and not now.
New Unity
No wonder Climate Minister Habeck has still not submitted a draft for an immediate climate protection program. It should state how the government is speeding up in order to still achieve its climate goals by 2030 – 65 percent fewer emissions compared to 1990. But the coalition is also divided on this.
This time the question is whether the program should eliminate a central rule of the Climate Protection Act: According to this, every minister is responsible for achieving the climate goals in his area year after year. Transport Minister Wissing considers it impossible to cut emissions in the short term. The Greens already have ideas and warn against “softening” the law, as traffic politician Stefan Gelbhaar says.
As a protest, Minister Wissing did not take the climate protection law very seriously in the summer. He should actually have presented measures with which he would save the three million tons that traffic emitted in 2021 in this and the following years. Habeck’s expert advice tore up Wissing’s proposals these days as “already unsatisfactory to begin with”.
When Habeck and Wissing left the glass room of the national control center on Friday and appeared in front of the press, the ministers expressed unity: “Today we gave the go-ahead for an interministerial steering group to build up charging infrastructure,” said the responsible transport minister. The group is “the basis for things to be very closely coordinated”. Economics Minister Habeck added: “We promised each other” that they would work better together in the future. Both get along well personally and use first names.
“There was a cleansing thunderstorm,” was the message afterwards on this sultry late summer day in August. The working group, staffed by officials from both houses, should meet “closely timed”. The directive said that if there were any problems, no matter how small, they should contact the ministers immediately. In October, according to the plan, the cabinet should finally decide on the master plan.
Will there also be a plan to meet the climate targets by then? Habeck is counting on colleague Wissing “developing further ideas on how improvements can be made”.
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