“That went wrong in the GDR already”

Germany’s Energiewende will not succeed “fast and easy”, and the country’s energy supply will continue to depend on lignite for some time, said Brandenburg’s state economy minister Albrecht Gerber in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. “I do know that we need to exit lignite. But we’re not at that point in Germany yet”, said Gerber. For now, Germany’s energy policy can be likened to “a kind of planned economy micro-control”, which had “already failed in the GDR”, according to Gerber. Back in July, Gerber announced  that Brandenburg would lower its 2030 climate targets. This was because the state had more transport and economic growth than expected and was not able to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) as planned, Gerber said in the interview.

Find the interview in German here.

For background, read the CLEW factsheet When will Germany finally ditch coal?