German climate policy a failure – commentary
Germany’s energy transition is expensive and ineffective, writes economist Joachim Weimann of the University of Magdeburg in a guest commentary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Despite high financial support for green energies and high electricity prices, CO2 emissions have hardly sunk. Between 2005 and 2016, energy-related carbon pollution fell by just 7.2 percent, while the feed-in tariffs cost electricity consumers 25 billion euros last year alone, according to Weimann. “Gigantic effort, ridiculously low returns – that is the reality of Germany’s climate policy,” he writes.
Read the commentary in German here.
For background, read the dossier Energiewende effects on power prices, costs and industry and the factsheet How much does Germany’s energy transition cost?