German Politics
Closing the German climate ambition gap
Why, after a hot summer, the German Coal Commission must now keep calm and phase out coal
Like the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, Germany experienced a summer of extreme heat and drought in 2018, impacting different parts of its economy, and bringing home the impacts of a global climate crisis: Power plants, in particular hard coal and nuclear plants, were forced to operate at lower capacities because...
Why are German coal workers so powerful, when there are so few?
With Germany slipping from its position as a climate leader, an industry with just 20,000 jobs is dictating policy to the federal government The German energy transition has long been seen as one of the world’s most ambitious and effective undertakings in the fight against climate change, and...
A Climate For Ambition?
The German government has set up a Commission for “Growth, Structural Change, and Employment”, or “Coal Commission”. This brings together key stakeholders from ministries, industry, trade unions, regions, NGOs and research institutes. It is mandated to propose an action plan for an orderly – and therefore...
Deficit of ambition: how Germany’s new coalition government falls short on climate & energy
On 21 March 2018 in an hour-long speech after her re-appointment as chancellor, Mrs Merkel dedicated less than 40 seconds to climate and energy policy. This is indicative of the level of priority that climate policy is likely to have for her government over the next four years in the absence of greater...