[DW] Scientists issued urgent warnings about climate change in 2018. Germany's summertime temperatures hit record highs. Nevertheless, the government has lost its enthusiasm for tackling climate issues, Jens Thurau writes.
The government has finally acknowledged that its stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 is not even remotely achievable.
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze, a Social Democrat, performed a bizarre balancing act at the World Climate Summit in Poland earlier this month. Like the leaders of developing countries, small island nations and other states committed to tackling climate change, she called for more to be done to address the problem ‐ however, she rejected demands for a swift end to reliance on coal. Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, told Schulze on stage in Katowice that Germany's climate policy had become a joke. Schulze did not respond. However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them...
back in Germany, Economic Affairs and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier, of the Christian Democrats (CDU), announced on television that Schulze's message of solidarity with impoverished island countries had not been agreed in advance, and so did not represent the position of Germany's grand coalition government as a whole. |