New environment minister “stroke of luck” for coal exit – commentary

New environment minister Svenja Schulze might be a “stroke of luck” for Germany’s climate policy, because she could narrow the gap between the political camps regarding the country’s coal exit, writes Kurt Stukenberg, co-chief editor of Greenpeace Magazine, in a guest commentary for Zeit Online. Schulze, a 49-year-old Social Democrat, hails from the industrial heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and is a member of the staunchly pro-coal IG BCE mining workers union. An environment minister with an affinity for coal industry interests “is much more suited to moderate the transition than for example a Toni Hofreiter [Green Party Bundestag member] would have been,” writes Stukenberg. 

Read the guest commentary in German here.

For background, read CLEW’s profile on Schulze: New German environment minister faces steep uphill battle on climate.