The long read: A year ago, Germany’s vice-chancellor was one of the country’s best-liked public figures. Then came the tabloid-driven backlash. Now he has to win the argument all over again
It’s weird. Before the election all coalition parties stood with the Paris agreement. Before going into this coalition it was the commonly agreed goal. But now Germany effectively canceled it.
The German government as many other governments as well, as basicly made massive promises and did not pass the necessary laws to actually meet any sort of climate goals for a long time. The 1.5 degree goal of the Paris agreement was effectivly already unachievable when the current government came into office as 75% of primary energy was still fossil fuels and Germany needed net zero by 2030 to make that.
It is really important to say this, but the current heating bill is actually pretty radical, as it includes existing homes. Home heating makes up about half of Germanys natural gas consumption, so the gas lobby was not going to take this without a fight. Hence the massive media backlash. Basicly if a climate bill is not controversial, chances are it is not radical enough. At the same time the 2035 combustion engine sales ban in the EU was a very hard hit for the oil industry and the German Greens pushed for it very hard. Also they got the EUs emissions trading system enlarged and laws to increase renewables generation in Germany and finally agreed on a plan to set up hydrogen power plants in Germany to fix the intermittence issue of renewables.
So basicly what the Greens have created is a decent framework, which puts Germany above the 1.5 degrees of the Paris Agreement, but still under the 2 degree mark, which is in all honesty a really good thing. If they kept nuclear, it would have been better, but it still is some actually good governing.
Obviously the fossil fuel industry does not agree with that and is using everything they have to kill the Greens right now. The conservatives are partly willing to govern with the Greens and the moderate ones propably will not kill what the Greens have created. The social democrats want to keep it too, so the only real option is to get a far right government in to kill all of that. So thats what we currently see. A media storm to make all of it stop and a massive onslaught on the left. All of that works well in Germany and unfortunatly also abroad.
Just as if there were politicians, who would before an election say they’d tackle a problem to get more popular, while actually not working on solutions.
The climate action movement is burning out due to the demands of the climate pathways which are not being met. All the years of campaigning needed constant turnover, because it is and was such a high energy protest - very rarely are such extreme consequences of not acting proven.
It doesn’t help that each and every political fraction wants to influence the climate action movement: revolutionists and reformists, companies and anticapitalists, religions and feminists, fascists and antifascists, parties and autonomists etc… Some of them might have a legitimate claim on the attention economy, but the future of all of these struggles literally necessitate climate action in this decade.
Tabloids are kind of in league with the enemy who is very skilled and experienced (e.g. tobacco, FCKW, lead, asbestos) at casting doubt, delay and criminalisation, which is yet another hurdle.
It’s weird. Before the election all coalition parties stood with the Paris agreement. Before going into this coalition it was the commonly agreed goal. But now Germany effectively canceled it.
The German government as many other governments as well, as basicly made massive promises and did not pass the necessary laws to actually meet any sort of climate goals for a long time. The 1.5 degree goal of the Paris agreement was effectivly already unachievable when the current government came into office as 75% of primary energy was still fossil fuels and Germany needed net zero by 2030 to make that.
It is really important to say this, but the current heating bill is actually pretty radical, as it includes existing homes. Home heating makes up about half of Germanys natural gas consumption, so the gas lobby was not going to take this without a fight. Hence the massive media backlash. Basicly if a climate bill is not controversial, chances are it is not radical enough. At the same time the 2035 combustion engine sales ban in the EU was a very hard hit for the oil industry and the German Greens pushed for it very hard. Also they got the EUs emissions trading system enlarged and laws to increase renewables generation in Germany and finally agreed on a plan to set up hydrogen power plants in Germany to fix the intermittence issue of renewables.
So basicly what the Greens have created is a decent framework, which puts Germany above the 1.5 degrees of the Paris Agreement, but still under the 2 degree mark, which is in all honesty a really good thing. If they kept nuclear, it would have been better, but it still is some actually good governing.
Obviously the fossil fuel industry does not agree with that and is using everything they have to kill the Greens right now. The conservatives are partly willing to govern with the Greens and the moderate ones propably will not kill what the Greens have created. The social democrats want to keep it too, so the only real option is to get a far right government in to kill all of that. So thats what we currently see. A media storm to make all of it stop and a massive onslaught on the left. All of that works well in Germany and unfortunatly also abroad.
Just as if there were politicians, who would before an election say they’d tackle a problem to get more popular, while actually not working on solutions.
The climate action movement is burning out due to the demands of the climate pathways which are not being met. All the years of campaigning needed constant turnover, because it is and was such a high energy protest - very rarely are such extreme consequences of not acting proven.
It doesn’t help that each and every political fraction wants to influence the climate action movement: revolutionists and reformists, companies and anticapitalists, religions and feminists, fascists and antifascists, parties and autonomists etc… Some of them might have a legitimate claim on the attention economy, but the future of all of these struggles literally necessitate climate action in this decade.
Tabloids are kind of in league with the enemy who is very skilled and experienced (e.g. tobacco, FCKW, lead, asbestos) at casting doubt, delay and criminalisation, which is yet another hurdle.