D.he climate activists from “Fridays for Future” are dissatisfied. It didn’t take long before they distributed their first statements on Thursday: With this coalition agreement, the 1.5-degree target cannot be achieved and why should the coal phase-out only “ideally” be achieved in 2030? “With the measures they have presented, the three parties have made a conscious decision to escalate the climate crisis further,” it said. The activists described the fact that the coalition did not want to increase the price of CO2 as a “scandal”. They also criticized the fact that the parties wanted to expand the natural gas infrastructure. The necessary climate neutrality by 2035 cannot be achieved in this way. In order to solve the crisis, the activists called for a “transformation of society”.
The criticism is not surprising. Even within the Greens it became apparent in the past few weeks that they were anything but satisfied with the results in the area of climate protection. The Green Youth, which has grown in importance in the party with its growing number of members, grumbles too. The planned expansion of renewable energies, the early phase-out of coal in 2030 and the phase-out of the internal combustion engine are successes for the climate movement and the Greens, it said. The left party youth expressed criticism rather that the Hartz IV rate should not increase and that too little was taken out of social policy.
“You have to keep building up the pressure”
The two chairmen, Sarah-Lee Heinrich and Tim Dzienus, are concerned about the issue of traffic. The responsible ministry with a lot of budget does not go to the Greens, but to the FDP. “My position: without a green Ministry of Transport, no green government participation”, writes the green district mayor of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Monika Herrmann, on Twitter. The climate activist Luisa Neubauer, who is also a member of the Greens, was delighted with the coal phase-out and that villages in the Rhineland had been saved. Reaching the 1.5-degree target means “manual work” – you have to keep building up pressure, said Neubauer on Wednesday evening on ZDF.
How the coalition agreement is assessed by the climate protection movement and by environmental organizations that are close to the party is important for the Greens. Because from Thursday onwards, all members of the party will decide whether to agree to the contract. During the negotiations with the SPD and FDP it was certainly an argument to enforce more – “otherwise the grassroots won’t participate”. The task now is to convince the members of what is available. The chairman of the Green parliamentary group, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, highlighted the “climate check” in interviews, to which every law is subjected. This is a great step forward. A rejection of the base is seen as unlikely, but even a narrow approval would not send a good signal for the Greens and the future government.
Environmental organizations rate the climate policy part of the coalition agreement rather positively. Christoph Bals, political director of the climate protection organization Germanwatch, finds words of praise: “As far as the goals of expanding renewable energies are concerned, that is very promising,” he told the FAZ Give Germany. ”He expresses doubts in the area of transport policy. Although there is a target of 15 million electric cars, the instruments for implementation are only vaguely indicated.
From Bals’ point of view, the decisive factor is whether the coalition succeeds in sharpening the important instruments: “In other words, to find the way to climate neutrality through financial incentives, regulatory law and the appropriate CO2 price.” for example the concern of not being able to raise the price of CO2 too high. In contrast, the FDP showed doubts about the means of regulatory law, also in order not to harm the economy. “Many measures will have to be anchored in the immediate climate program as early as 2022. Whether the coalition will achieve its climate policy goals will be decided in the coming year, ”says Bals.
Olaf Brandt, Chairman of BUND, speaks of an environmental coalition agreement that is a step forward, but expresses doubts as to whether the 1.5 degree target in Paris can be met. “In this regard, we see the measures in the transport sector, the gas infrastructure and the dismantling of environmentally harmful subsidies, for example, as critical,” says Brandt. “The Ampel-Coalition has presented an ambitious entry into the conversion of animal husbandry. Now it will be a matter of shaping agricultural policy in the spirit of the Agriculture Commission for the Future. “
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