Eric Worrall writes:
As the German President publicly berates the Aussie Prime Minister at the G20, with the statement “Climate change won’t stop at the Pacific Islands”, behind the scenes, Germany is preparing to formally abandoning her commitment to a 40% cut in GHG by 2020.
According to the GWPF (referencing a Spiegel article);
The German coalition government is planning to withdraw from its 2020 climate change goals. Notwithstanding public protest, Federal Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) has abandoned the requirement of cutting 40 percent of CO2 emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2020.
“It’s clear that the [2020 CO2] target is no longer viable,” said the vice-chancellor according to information obtained by SPIEGEL, adding: “We cannot exit from coal power overnight.”
Experts have doubted for some time that German climate targets are being met – especially since Gabriel is defending vehemently coal-fired power generation. According to the Ministry of Environment, Germany would have to cut 62 to 100 million tonnes of CO2 every year in order to achieve its goals. Shutting down old coal power stations would only reduce CO2 emissions by 40 million tons.
In his battle with Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks (SPD) who urged the government to adhere to the climate targets laid down in the coalition agreement, Gabriel has now prevailed. In confidential conversation with the environment minister Gabriel told her that he would not tolerate further resistance to the new government line. “It doesn’t work like that,” the Labour leader said.
Within the SPD, however, criticism of Gabriel’s U-turn is getting louder. In a letter, prominent eco-experts of the Social Democratic Party, including Erhard Eppler, Volker Hauff and Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, the signatories call on SPD ministers in the coalition government not to abandon Germany’s climate targets. They demand that the national reduction target for 2020 should be safeguarded: “This national target is also important because the EU’s climate and energy targets for 2030 which were adopted at the end of October are not ambitious enough.”
http://www.thegwpf.com/germany-announces-withdrawal-from-binding-2020-climate-targets/
In my opinion this is blatant climate hypocrisy at its finest – bold statements and public bullying of skeptical politicians from the German Chancellor, while back at home, Germany rushes full steam ahead to embrace coal, to save her tottering economy from green ruin. Germany’s new power plants will most likely burn their share of Australian coal – coal the German Chancellor publicly says she wants Australia to leave in the ground.
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Goldie makes a very good point.
The current regime for calculating carbon dioxide emissions unfairly casts countries like Australia as high emitters because of the energy exports. I think it would be interesting if the carbon emissions were calculated in the same may as consumption taxes with the ultimate consumer of the energy being attributed all of the emissions produced in extracting and transporting the energy to them. This would make the emissions figures for the hypocritical Europeans look even worse
Not only that, this stupid, unfair per capita crap that penalises small populations over large ones and completely ignores the ultimate goal. CO2 fertilisation alone has increased uptake in Australia so that in 2014 we will be ABSORBING more CO2 than in 1999. Australia has already reached Nett Zero. It should be noted that in 1999 we absorbed almost 20 times what we emitted, and with global greening in 2014 we will absorb more than 21 times what we emit simply because plant growth is up some 6%. 6% × 20 is 1.2 so total absorbtion is now 21.2 times. By the time CO2 reaches 430 PPM our absorbtion will be up to 23 times our emission. I wanna know where our payments are for sinking the rest of the worlds CO2 emissions.
The hypocrisy of the Austrialian Greens (and Merkel for that matter) is that:
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=4050
If they really were serious they would cut off all those coal burning polluters by the source, wouldn’t they?
Oh wait, then Australia would have to find $36 BILLION BUCKS of other stuff to export…
Thanks, Eric. I’m glad to read Germany is not committed to suicide.
At least not yet.
they are worrying about CO2 reduction they should be worried about icelands Bardarbunger volcano it is sending out 30000 – 40000 tons of SO2 every 24 hours and if it goes bang well lets hope and pray it never will. http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga-2/ http://en.vedur.is/media/jar/Factsheet_Bardarbunga_20141117-1.pdf
There was another interesting German climate news item on the same day: The “Mercedes” company (which isn’t really called that) will shut down Germany’s ONLY car battery factory. Another supposed future tech that got no future in Germany…
Hey we can’t build everything. We’ll concentrate on the subsystems where we can make a profit, ‘kay? (I’m not at Daimler; but I’m not that far away either)
Apart from the Euro nonsense, you wouldn’t.
Germany was committed to the Euro by the 16 year “conservative” chancellor Helmut Kohl (same party as Angela Merkel). It is rumoured that agreeing to the Euro was the price the French demanded for agreeing to the reunification.
Daimler Benz: http://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/
Angela Merkel has been a big wheel in German Politics for 9 years which is a long time in any political system. A politician who does not talk out both sides of his mouth will not hang to his office for very long. Angel Merkel talks out of both sides of her mouth. So what?
Just call it drivel…
more like ventriloquism, with most of the other Euro countries on her lap.
If Germany doesn’t cut back on its commitment now, it will have to do so next year.
Environment minister, SPD’s Hendricks, wants 40% CO2 reduction and coal power plant closures if necessary. Come what may, the climate shall be saved!
Vice chancellor , SPD’s Gabriel, wants to preserve the stream of incoming loot aka tax payer money, – Come what may, the loot shall be saved!
The media take this or that position depending on what they think will work better to save them from their imminent death.
The German citizen watches the spectacle with disgust, and apathy, and hopes both the media and the bloc parties just die. Oh and the EU please.
Whatever the politics, they have no chance of achieving the 40%. Most of the reductions already achieved since 1990 were during the early 1990’s after shut down of old East German heavy industry.
Emissions have actually risen since 2009, a new tranche of coal power stations is coming on line and most nuclear is still operating (currently contributing 17% of power, and due to close by 2022).
All the figures are here
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/germany-to-drop-2020-climate-targets/
Half of the nuclear reactors are still operating. The other half has been shut down after Fukushima.
Yes, I gather that nuclear still supplies 17% of power, and they are planned to phase out by 2022
But the effects are not equal. 8 reactors, the oldest, were shut down in the wake of Fukushima. The nine best performing and largest reactors will be operating to 2022.
@Walter Sobchak
..Angela Merkel has been a big wheel in German Politics for 9 years which is a long time in any political system. A politician who does not talk out both sides of his mouth will not hang to his office for very long. Angel Merkel talks out of both sides of her mouth. So what?
Margaret Thatcher was a cabinet minister for 20 years and a Prime Minister for 11, without changing her principles one iota.
One key to understanding what is going on is that Merkel is not trying to make sense, but is governing strictly following opinion polls. If a frantic majority is running scared and clamouring for shutting down nukes, that is what she will do, come hell or high water. If the majority wants to save the climate by any means possible, she will pretend to “lead” the way in that direction, also, and simply wait until it dawns on the populace that this would mean economic suicide. Then, when time is ripe, she will reverse course. Simple.
Before the election in 2005, when she was widely regarded as a shoo-in for victory, she did her best to give a Maggie Thatcher impression. By doing so, she almost managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, beating down-and-out Schroeder by a razor-thin margin. She learned her lesson, like a good girl, and ever since has stood for exactly nothing but carefully governing to public opinion.
So. Importing a phrase. And forget about what Mein Führer links to Your President.
brg – Hans
Trust-But-Verify only works if you have a President that wants to enforce it, right Barry?
Germans = Angst + Romantik +Planwirtschaft (planned economy)
Whenever I encounter the phrase “Carbon Footprint”, I have to gag, and then I generally swear a lot, until the nausea fades. I always try to imagine this trail of carbonized imprints we are all leaving everywhere, like some post historic Diplodoci, trudging wearily through the carboniferous bogs, of yesteraeon.
I had hoped that serious people would have by now have passed through this climate alarum
and moved on from carbonized footmarks, like we once moved on from casting bronze keepsakes of baby footprints, and regained some sanity, but I have despaired, there are so few
willing to think, and so many able to parrot.
Hang on. Was this Aussie rip shirt completely dead set against AGW and labelled it as nonsense? We need to see who or what is pulling his strings.
If Angie pee’d off Putin completely, he might decide not to supply her EU with gas. So who is pulling her strings because businesses are butt aching from the loss of trade to Russia at the moment.. And Russia still requires paying!
Germany will, unless there’s a change in course allowing nuclear power plants to operate, either be burning more coal by 2022 than it did in 1990; or the cities will be burning due to riots with millions more out of work after the collapse of energy-intense manufacturing sector. With France already on the brink of collapse; embracing a shutdown of its nuclear power sector (IIRC it provides ¾ of all electrical power in France), all of Western Europe is likely to suffer a similar fate.
ISTM that that is what the Greens have always wanted.
Germany’s Vice-Chancellor SIgmar Gabriel “sees” the queues of the unemployed already; not just those from the proposed shutting down of coal mining in Germany, but also the consequences of companies moving their real business to countries with cheaper energy. Coal is the heartbeat of Germany.
The figures:
Gross electricity production 2013 by source
Brown coal 25.5%
Nuclear energy 15.4%
Hard coal 19.3%
Natural gas 10.7%
Mineral oil products 1.1%
Renewable energy sources 24.0%
Other energy sources 4.0%
NB: The renewables include hydro and biomass. Wind amounted to 8% and PV solar to 5%.
Energy supplies threatened by tension with Putin, Eurozone slowing down… of course she is building coal fired stations. She isn’t an idiot.
I offered a $20 000 even money bet on the Guardian website yesterday that Germany would not meet its 2020 target. No takers yet but you never know. Will let you know the outcome.