Despite polls showing that Germans want more climate protection, Germany’s political parties, with one exception, shun the topic. Paul Hockenos argues that the standstill can’t go on if Germany expects to hit its climate targets. Germany’s Energiewende, or transition to clean energy, hasn’t gone according to plan – one reason being that there wasn’t a plan to begin with, just a few (indeed very important) laws and, critically, local businesspeople and communities that were chomping at the bit to produce energy themselves. And over the past 20 years there’s been plenty of obstacles, not least high energy prices and, until recently, the strong-willed opposition of German industry. Moreover, the gigantic project has cost, just in the past five years alone in terms of government investment and costs to consumers, an estimated €160 billion ($184 billion). Nevertheless, a decade of diverse polls show that Germans have broadly and consistently supported the transition to renewable energies (and simultaneously the phase-out of nuclear- and coal-generated power) usually with 80 to 90% of respondents favoring the transition, about half of … Continue reading Germany’s politicos close eyes to Energiewende’s popularity