Merkel receives broad backing at home for criticising US stance on climate

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s criticism of the current US administration’s stance on the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as her call for greater European assertiveness, have met with broad support from German politicians and business representatives, the business newspaper Handelsblatt reports. Dieter Kempf, president of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), said in a press release that the US had made itself “the odd one out” at the G7 summit in Italy, while innogy CEO Peter Terium called for “a united and strong Europe” capable of “shaping the future with our transatlantic partners on a level playing field”. Other decidedly US-friendly politicians of Merkel’s conservative CDU party, and of its coalition partner SPD, have backed the chancellor’s plea for a more assertive Europe, Handelsblatt writes. Merkel, who is not known for making strong remarks against her political partners, “seems determined to use the G20 summit in Hamburg to issue a public appeal for free trade and climate protection – with or without [US President Donald] Trump,” the newspaper says.
One day after Merkel said Europe and Germany “cannot completely rely” on the US any more, the chancellor repeated her criticism of Washington’s stance on climate protection at a sustainability conference in Berlin. “We are and will be close partners,” she said, but added that the G7 climate talks had been “very unsatisfactory”. Merkel said it was “a good thing that the differences have not been whitewashed”, and that six countries out of the Group of Seven “have shown their determination to back and implement the Paris Agreement”.

See the BDI’s press release in German here

For more information, see the CLEW article International climate community pins hopes on Merkel to sway Trump.