Munich Economic Summit
Friday, 29 May 2009
Renate Künast
Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Group, Alliance 90/The Greens, German Bundestag, Berlin
Climate & Energy Policy
I assume, that instead of talking about the "blind alleys" in climate policy, we should rather talk about how to overcome mental blockades in our society, especially in parts of the economic community.
I want to give you an example:
16 years ago, one of the big German energy companies told us in huge advertisement letters: "Even in the long run renewable energy will never be able to cover more than 4% of our electricity."
As we know, today the share is near 16% and reliable analyses (based on very conservative assumptions) say, that we can provide half of our electricity by renewables in 2020! (Bundesverband EE)
This development is absolutely necessary, because climate change is the biggest challenge humanity face today!
I'm happy that German climate policy has been so ambitious-at least under the coalition of greens and social democrats. (1998-2005)
With the German feed-in-tariff, the emission trading scheme on EU-level ans the nuclear phase-out we set the course for a secure, innovative and environmentally friendly energy policy.
And -by the way- we created 280 000 jobs.
Unfortunately, this successful climate policy is now threatened
- by the German chancellor Merkel, who uses the financial crisis as a pretext for slowing down climate protection measures
- by the old fossil
and nuclear industries, who notice that the renewables' success puts into question the old oligopoly structuresof the energy sector; so they do everything to stop the competitors
Politicians must not give in to the pressure of lobbies. Our time is running out. The era of fossil energies must come to an end.
There are alarming signals: the arctic see will be ice-free decades earlier than we have expected, perma-frost soil is melting and will accelerate the emission of greenhouse gases enormously.
Nicholas Stern told us: it will cost us much more to do nothing than to start climate protecting measures now.
It's time for a Green New Deal
We need a mix of instruments: massive investments in green technologies and new energy systems, incentives for such investments like the German feed-in-tariff, a global Emission Trading Scheme, stricter regulation, for example in the car sector etc.
And it's absolutely necessary to reach a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gases in Copenhagen in December.
Thank you!
