“Germany in 2017 is a coal country with climate folklore”

There’s a big discrepancy between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s call for other countries to decarbonise their economies and the grand coalition’s climate policy at home, Michael Bauchmüller writes in an opinion piece for Süddeutsche Zeitung. Merkel was able to shine as host of the G20 summit in Hamburg in July by closing ranks against the US on climate protection. “The [German government] coalition successfully sedated the electorate in terms of climate policy,” Bauchmüller writes. “In truth, nowhere in Europe produces as much CO₂ as Germany. [...] Germany in 2017 is a coal country with climate folklore, in which large engines travel unhindered,” writes Bauchmüller.

Read the opinion piece in German here.

For G20 background, read the CLEW article Germany heads for "spectacular" 2020 climate target miss - study and the dossier G20 2017 - Climate and energy at the Hamburg summit.