In the green parallel universe, sheer anger now reigns. While the party and parliamentary group leadership of the Greens bravely defends the traffic light compromise on climate policy, the green environment can hardly hold up. The editors of the “taz” shot the bird off.
She posted a caricature on Twitter in which the liberal Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing, was portrayed as Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and the FDP as NSDAP. In addition, the distorted slogan alluding to the climate stickers: “We stick to every highway.”
Minister Wissing reacted to this himself, and he did it elegantly, posting in Hebrew script: “Mana Mana Tekel und Persin”. The “Danekel” means the divine announcement of a great calamity. After the outrage against this Wissing-Goebbels comparison, the “taz” deleted her tweet.
The nerves in the green climate bubble are on edge
The process only shows how raw the nerves are in the green-loving climate bubble. Stefan Rahmsdorf, professor at the Potsdam Climate Institute, wrote under an SPD poster of Olaf Scholz as “Chancellor for Climate Protection”: “Where has this man gone?”
The German Environmental Aid takes the same line. She writes in a religious tone: The traffic light coalition “a sin against future generations”. The environmental association calls the Federal Chancellor with apocalyptic rhetoric a “Climate Disaster Chancellor”.
The pure horror also prevails among the climate activists from Fridays for future, who are bothered by the abolition of the so-called sector targets. So far, these have been used to record which area, such as road traffic, has come to what extent with the climate goals. The Greens had repeatedly used the transport sector’s deficit in climate protection to attack Transport Minister Wissing.
Now, after the traffic light compromise, that’s hardly possible. Now the party leader Ricarda Lang and the parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge can only state that the sector goals remain “in principle” – but not in detail. On Fridays for future in the pose of bewilderment: “So the reaction to a transport minister who misses his climate goals is to abolish the goals?”
When it comes to freeways and gas heating, the climate movement is united in its outrage
Carla Reemtsma, related to Luisa Neubauer and thanks to her television appearances a prominent face of the German climate protection movement, criticizes the modernization of motorways decided by the traffic light and the simultaneously softened ban on gas heating, a project of the Green Federal Minister of Economics. Reemtsma in Basta mode: “Anyone who – shortly after the emission targets for traffic and buildings were missed – blocked concrete measures such as a ban on motorway expansion and a ban on gas heating does not want climate protection.”
The young climate movement agrees with the veteran activists from Greenpeace. Martin Kaiser, head of Greenpeace Germany, railed implacably against the federal government, which at least includes a former Greenpeace head with responsibility for international climate protection, Jennifer Morgan.
That doesn’t stop her quasi-successor from fundamental criticism: “With the de facto abolition of the sector targets, the Federal Chancellor is gutting the Climate Protection Act.” continue – without any speed limit – to the wall.
Habeck, Baerbock and the party leadership of the Greens are still being spared – but not for long
The vehemence with which the green lobby reacts to the traffic light decisions with the participation of the Greens shows what problem the eco-party will now have with “the street”. The attacks by the climate organizations of the FDP, their traditional enemy, embodied by Transport Minister Wissing, and the social-democratic Federal Chancellor are still valid.
Robert Habeck, Annalena Baerbock and the party leadership of the Greens are still spared. But the climate activists won’t be able to ignore the fact that “their” Greens are jointly responsible for all these supposedly terrible anti-climate decisions for much longer.
The whole thing also shows how complex Habeck and Baerbock’s plan is to move the Greens from the left corner to the political center in order to make them electable for middle-class classes as well. After all, the more compromises, the angrier the uncompromising become.
This uncompromising attitude also poses a democratic challenge. Anyone who is absolutely committed to climate protection runs the risk of losing sight of the social realities of life in the country – as just happened to Robert Habeck with gas heating. The ideological narrowing is a fundamental problem: Democracy thrives on balancing interests – and climate protection is “one” interest. But there are also others, such as the expectation of many people to be able to continue living in the prosperity they have earned.
The excited climate debate has a national imbalance
Surprisingly, in the current climate debate, facts that could call into question the German climate protection promoted by the Greens play almost no role. For example: CO2 emissions have decreased by a third in Germany over the past 30 years. In contrast, emissions in China, which emits almost 20 times as much CO2 into the atmosphere as Germany (11.4 billion compared to 675 million tons), have quadrupled during this period.
In India, which emits four times as much CO2 as Germany, emissions have quintupled. In Indonesia, which emits about as much carbon dioxide as Germany, emissions have quintupled.
If you want to be friendly, you can say: The excited climate debate has a national imbalance.
