Outsourcing of German coal question to commission is “coward energy policy” – opinion

Solving a complex social problem like the phasing-out of coal - Germany’s traditional and still most important energy source  - is a “core task” of policymakers, and to outsource this task to an external commission amounts to “cowardice and refusal to work,” Jakob Schlandt writes in a commentary in Der Tagesspiegel. While a similar commission has already successfully brokered the orderly decommissioning of nuclear plants, the German coal question is much too difficult and multi-layered for the government to put the onus on others and let them figure out how best to distribute money, jobs, and other resources at the national level, he writes. “Both sides - opponents and friends of coal - can emotionalise their arguments, and while one side will talk about apples, the other will want to talk about pears.” Schlandt considers it even more worrying that the commission begins its work at a time when Germany’s Energiewende has encountered its first fully-fledged crisis: the pro-climate political consensus is increasingly challenged from the right, and the country’s national and international emissions reduction goals now seem out of reach.

Read the commentary in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet on Germany’s coal exit commission and the article Gore says Germany faces historic step as coal commission starts work for more information.