Ahead of state votes, East Germans doubt economic benefits of energy transition - survey

Many Germans are sceptical about the long-term economic benefits of the country’s landmark energy transition and worried the project will overburden them financially, a survey by the E.ON Foundation has found. Concerns are particularly pronounced in the east of the country, where the far-right and anti-climate action party AfD is expected to see large gains in upcoming state elections.

“The eastern German federal states are highlighting particularly early on and very clearly what will determine public acceptance of the energy transition in the future: it is not the goal of the transition itself that is at the heart of the scepticism, but rather the question of whether its economic benefits will actually reach the people,” the foundation said. “Eastern Germany is thus becoming the economic litmus test for the social sustainability of the energy transition as a whole.”

The fairness of climate action is a sore point in three upcoming state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin. Other surveys have also shown that while voters back ambitious climate action and the energy transition in principle, many consider the distribution of costs unfair.

While 68 percent of respondents in eastern Germany worry that climate action policies will place a financial strain on them, 61 percent of people share this concern in the west of the country. In a similar vein, 69 percent of people living in low-income households doubt that the transition will secure long-term prosperity, while this is true for 56 percent of that group in the west. 

Only 23 percent of eastern Germans believe that the energy transition will lead to lower energy costs in the long term, compared to 31 percent in the west.

“Although the problem arises earlier and is more acute in the east, it is not a phenomenon specific to that region, but rather a challenge facing the whole of Germany,” the E.ON Foundation said. With a view to the upcoming state elections in the east, it added: “Many citizens are looking for answers to the question of how the energy transition can remain affordable in the short term and when the promised economic benefits will actually become apparent in their everyday lives.”

While many households worry about the energy transition’s immediate affordability, party programmes largely focus on the long-term cost advantages of renewables or questions of industrial policy, the foundation said, adding that many citizens lack conviction that long-term economic benefits will materialise. Its European survey had shown earlier this year that many other countries did a much better job than Germany in reconciling the energy transition with economic prosperity, the organisation said.