Diesel summit “can only be beginning” / Polarised Energiewende
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The diesel scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of the German car industry’s troubles and neither the manufacturers’ CEOs nor Chancellor Angela Merkel have grasped the gravity of the crisis, writes Heribert Prantl in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “With appeasements, with mere homeopathic concessions, with a bit of laxness and digital hurray in the garage – as was just decided at the car summit – the great crisis cannot be solved,” writes Prantl.
Read the opinion piece in German here.
For more on the summit’s outcome, read the CLEW articles German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus and "Win for car industry" - First reactions to German diesel summit.
New York Times
While Britain, France, Spain and Greece are making steps to end the era of diesel cars, “German auto executives and political leaders meeting in Berlin on Wednesday appeared determined to rescue the technology”, write Melissa Eddy and Jack Ewing in New York Times.
Read the article in English here.
For more on the summit’s outcome, read the CLEW articles German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus and "Win for car industry" - First reactions to German diesel summit.
Handelsblatt
German carmakers must prove the effectiveness of the measures for better air quality promised at the diesel summit, writes Silke Kersting in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. “The government must also act” and be strict regarding on-road emissions tests. “This Wednesday, tables were cleaned and the feasible achieved”, but everyone should be aware that agreeing on what future mobility should look like is the real challenge, writes Kersting.
Read the opinion piece in German here.
For more on the summit’s outcome, read the CLEW articles German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus and "Win for car industry" - First reactions to German diesel summit.
Zeit Online
The German government was much too soft on carmakers at the diesel summit in Berlin, writes Petra Pinzler in an opinion piece for Zeit Online. “In Germany, laws are valid for some, summits are held for others,” writes Pinzler. Even at the summit, carmakers did not do “what functioning authorities should have forced them to do for a long time. They announce insufficient repairs as generosity, and politicians let them get away with it. What an embarrassing enactment”, writes Pinzler.
Read the opinion piece in German here.
For more on the summit’s outcome, read the CLEW articles German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus and "Win for car industry" - First reactions to German diesel summit.
Spiegel Online
The diesel summit is “a beacon of Germany’s lack of digitality” and shows that the country tends to place too much value on improving instead of renewing, writes Sascha Lobo in an article for his column on Spiegel Online. “It is not about the car of the future, but about the future of the car, which is an interconnected software,” writes Lobo. The diesel summit should have been a digitalisation summit, he writes.
Read the column article in German here.
For background, read the CLEW dossier The digitalisation of the Energiewende and the article German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus.
Handelsblatt
The German discussion about the energy transition is “marked by polarisation, polemic, and misleading reasoning”, writes former energy industry manager Thomas Unnerstall in a guest commentary in Handelsblatt. One side criticises “exploding costs” and “a gradual de-industrialisation”, others criticise the introduction of auctions for renewables support, and others emphasise climate protection so much that they ignore economic feasibility. This polarisation undermined the societal consensus needed for a project like the Energiewende: “More honesty is needed, more fact-based orientation, more spirit of compromise – on both sides,” writes Unnerstall, who wrote the book “The German Energy Transition - Design, Implementation, Cost and Lessons”.
For background on the German generational project, check out CLEW’s Germany's Energiewende: The Easy Guide.
Reuters
Coal-fired power generation “looks set to remain the backbone” of Germany’s energy supply, writes Vera Eckert for Reuters. This contrasts with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s international ambition as climate protection role model, she adds.
Read the article in English here.
For background, read the CLEW factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal? and the article Merkel wins respect for G20 climate result at "B-"-summit.
bizz energy
It is “surprising” that major German banks did so little to finance renewable energy internationally while the country was a driver of the global energy transition, Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute (DIE) told Christian Schaudwet for bizz energy. G20 states agreed at the July summit in Hamburg on a Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth, which emphasised the need for private capital for climate protection. It was “unlikely” that the German banking sector would commit much beyond the state development bank, writes Schaudwet.
Read the article in German here.
For background on the G20 summit, read the CLEW dossier G20 2017 - Climate and energy at the Hamburg summit.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Ecologic criticism of the German agriculture industry plays no role in the campaign for the upcoming general elections, contrary to previous years, writes Jan Grossarth in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Priorities now lay with topics like migration, terrorism and international security. And while the green movement had achieved “clean rivers, better air quality and climate agreements” over the past decades, the agricultural transition was still far away, writes Grossarth.
For background, read the CLEW dossiers Bioenergy in Germany and Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende.
