“CDU and CSU dissociate themselves from conservative climate demands”

The leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) dissociated itself from a paper by a conservative group within the party – “Berlin Circle” – that had criticised “increasingly aggressive policy goal setting, especially the CO₂ reduction targets”, reports news agency Reuters. CDU general secretary Peter Tauber said the party would continue to stand by the country’s climate targets and “consequently implement the Climate Action Plan 2050 – which includes a step-by-step exit from coal among other things”. In a separate article in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Cerstin Gammelin writes that Social Democratic chancellor candidate Martin Schulz had criticised the paper and said that Merkel now needed to clarify her party’s official stance.

Read the Reuters article in German here and the SZ article in German here and find the paper in German here.

For background read the CLEW factsheet Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets and the CLEW dossier Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende.