The term debate becomes a long-term debate: Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) provokes a new nuclear dispute in the traffic light coalition.
Not working again, Germany missed its climate target again. At least that’s what the think tank Agora Energiewende predicts, which presented on Wednesday the Federal Republic’s CO2 emissions. Director Simon Müller spoke of an “alarm signal” if CO2 emissions stagnated “at a high level” – and “despite significantly lower energy consumption by households and industry”. So what’s the problem?
Among other things, in the transport sector, which lags “significantly” behind its climate targets. On the one hand, this is due to the renewed increase in traffic after the corona decline, and on the other hand to the “lack of political measures to reduce emissions,” says the report. In other words: Volker Wissing has to deliver.
Last year, the Federal Minister of Transport submitted a proposal from the FDP that was intended to ensure compliance with the climate targets in his sector – and was described by the Expert Council for Climate Issues as “already without sufficient claim”. Since then he has not made any substantial proposals to reduce greenhouse gases, although this also obliges Wissing to do so. The German environmental aid even accused the minister.
Now Wissing makes another advance. In the (FAZ) on Tuesday he called for an independent expert commission to decide on a further extension of the lifespan of the three nuclear power plants. A “technical answer to the question of how we can ensure a stable and affordable energy supply and at the same time achieve our climate protection goals” is needed, says Wissing. According to his reasoning, the “ramp up of electromobility” could be operated both more climate-friendly and more cost-effectively with nuclear power than with climate-damaging coal power.
The term debate is finally becoming a long-term debate
This finally turns the term debate into a long-term debate, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) actually wanted to end in October. After the FDP and the Greens got so caught up in a long dispute about the continued operation of the three remaining nuclear reactors, the chancellor resorted to his directive competence and decreed a compromise: the power plants can continue to run, but “until April 15, 2023 at the latest”. From this Thursday onwards, the reactors will still be connected to the grid for exactly 100 days.
Most recently (SPD), “(to) end this debate and push ahead with the expansion of renewable energies”. Wissing counters. “We don’t need any political arguments or dogmatism now,” he told the “FAZ”. “If we don’t want to discuss it politically, then we have to clarify it scientifically.” FDP boss and federal finance minister of an independent expert commission, this could help to “overcome party-political cants”.
A change in thinking among the Greens, , is not very realistic. Nuclear power is “expensive and dangerous” and again emphasized the final phase-out date in mid-April. “Any further attempt to bring an extension of running times into the debate with ever new flimsy justifications will fail and waste energy unnecessarily.” SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch argued in a similar way, calling on “all coalition partners” to now focus their efforts on expanding renewables.
With Wissing’s repeated nuclear initiative, a coalition dispute about the German climate goals as a whole is looming, over which Federal Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) is watching. After the presentation of the Agora study, he held the Minister of Transport responsible without naming him. “Our problem child is the transport sector, where CO2 emissions have risen again”, . “All the measures planned so far are not enough to close the large CO2 gap here.” There is an “urgent need for action”.
The Greens co-chair Ricarda Lang called on Wissing to ensure a reduction in CO2 emissions in the transport sector. “If Germany wants to achieve its climate goals in the future, all areas must deliver: especially the transport sector,” on Thursday. So far there is “no suggestion” from the Ministry of Transport on how this should succeed. That must change quickly now.
“I bet on a smoke candle”
Neither Habeck nor Lang got involved in the long-term debate about the extension of the lifespan, they apparently see no need to raise the matter again scientifically, as Wissing demanded. There isn’t much to clarify anyway, as Brigitte Knopf points out. The deputy chair of the Expert Council for Climate Issues, , sees no solution in the latest proposal either.
How nuclear power is supposed to help to significantly reduce emissions in the transport sector seems “a mystery to her,” she said. “I’m guessing a smoke candle.” That would only make electricity “minimally” cheaper, “and it’s not sustainable either.” It makes more sense to expand green energies. “And by the way, we don’t have the problem that we have too many electric cars and no longer know where to get the electricity from,” she told the newspaper. “The problem is that diesel and petrol cars are still being bought in this country.”
It is true that the Agora study on CO2 emissions in Germany is provisional. The Federal Environment Agency intends to present the official greenhouse gas balance for 2022 in mid-March. But they show a first tendency. Transport Minister Wissing should still have a lot of work to do. And the traffic light coalition may have an even longer term debate.
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Source: Stern
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