by Will Jones
Joe Kaeser said strict zero-emission targets had crippled manufacturing and heavy industry in Germany and beyond. He called on the German Government to work on a more “economically feasible plan” for the country to decarbonise.
“The critics have a point when they say you risk your economic power [and] society’s wellbeing by being ideological about Net Zero,” he said.
His comments will raise questions about Britain’s approach to Net Zero, which official forecasts show will add hundreds of billions of pounds to government spending over the next few decades.
As well as questions about cost, the UK and Europe face increasing pressure from the US to dial back plans which Trump administration officials claim are making countries “subservient” to Beijing.
Sir Keir Starmer will fly to China this week in the first visit by a British Prime Minister since 2018, with energy likely to be among the topics discussed.
Kaeser, who previously ran German industrial giant Siemens before becoming Chairman of its energy division, warned that European companies were becoming uncompetitive because of green energy policies.
He criticised the Government in Berlin for forcing zero emission targets on carmakers and demanding that businesses prove the products they sell have no connection to deforestation.
The German businessman also criticised officials for sacrificing reliable, cheap energy by ditching fossil fuels.
Kaeser said: “They became ideologists on renewables. That’s a bad idea. If you are an industrial country and cannot provide a sustainable, affordable and reliable source of energy, you have a problem.”
Germany’s share of global emissions is currently less than 2% – much lower than other industrialised countries including Brazil and India – and Kaeser said even halving this figure would make little difference to the global picture.
By comparison, China now accounts for a third of global carbon emissions while the UK’s share is less than 1%.
“Why would you risk your industrial competitiveness by maybe being a rounding error in the global discussion?” Kaeser said.
Germany has a goal of hitting zero carbon emissions by 2045, a more aggressive target than Britain’s legally enshrined 2050 deadline.
Kaeser, who is also the Chairman of Daimler trucks, attacked the EU’s approach of reaching Net Zero by regulation. He said Brussels spent too much time drawing up rules for manufacturers without considering how they could kill demand.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Britain’s energy industry faces collapse thanks to Labour’s “chaotic and needless” rundown of the oil and gas sector, one of its biggest union backers has warned. Louise Gilmour, Scotland Secretary of the GMB union, says “delusional” Net Zero policies championed by Ed Miliband are causing “arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history”, the Telegraph reports.
