“The consultation process for the Climate Action Plan 2050”

The federal government ignored many of the results of the environment ministry’s stakeholder consultation process for the Climate Action Plan 2050 because of strong pressure from economic interests, according to a report commissioned by Greenpeace. The move threatens to “strengthen the already existing estrangement between the citizens and the ‘political class’”. This would mean using the process as a “sedative pill, a symbolic mode of acquiring acceptance”, writes the author Dieter Rucht, from the Berlin Social Science Center. The process may have been transparent, well-designed, professionally moderated and scientifically underpinned, but it was also too rushed and complex. Key stakeholder groups, as well as the younger generation, were excluded or under-represented.

Read the press release in German here and the report in German here.