Pressure on traffic light parties: “The time for excuses is over”

The climate protection movement “Fridays for Future” increases the pressure on the SPD, Greens and FDP. It calls for a faster phase-out of coal and gas. There is at least one point of overlap with the FDP.

The pressure increases. The traffic light parties have strengthened their negotiating teams for a government in the last few days. Criticism was at best quiet. The climate protection movement “Fridays for Future” is now speaking all the louder. “It’s not about doing more than the grand coalition or other states. It’s about doing enough,” says spokeswoman Annika Rittmann.

Doing enough with climate protection would mean leading Germany on a 1.5-degree path. So make sure that Germany does its part to ensure that the global climate really only warms up by 1.5 degrees and not more.

For this to work, the year of climate neutrality is not decisive, says Volker Quaschning from “Scientists for Future”, who researches renewable energies. “The year is usually chosen relatively arbitrarily for all parties, without a scientific background.” The decisive factor is the amount of CO2 that Germany is still allowed to emit.

FDP supports CO2 budget

“Fridays for Future” and “Scientists for Future” are therefore calling for the new government to quickly name an absolute CO2 budget. It is quite possible that a traffic light government will get this off the ground, because a CO2 budget can be found, for example, in the election manifesto of the FDP.

With the further demands of the climate movement it should be much more difficult for the SPD, Greens and FDP. Get out of coal by 2030 – that’s what the Greens want too, but an end to gas by 2035 and no more combustion cars by 2025? It is hard to imagine that a traffic light government would end up with it.

Environmental activists dissatisfied with negotiations

In the case of renewable energies, the overlaps are already greater. The SPD, Greens and FDP want to use two percent of all land in Germany for wind turbines. Expert Quaschning thinks that’s right. With the current rules on minimum distances between wind turbines and the next house, this goal is not achievable. “In Bavaria, for example, there is not even one percent of all space left over,” says Quaschning. The same applies to other federal states. “With the spacing areas that we currently have, we will not be able to become climate-neutral in Germany.”

“Fridays for Future” and “Scientists for Future” are skeptical of the results of negotiations so far by the SPD, Greens and FDP. Much is still “relatively vague”, such as the coal phase-out, for example. “Ideally by 2030” is written in the exploratory paper. The FDP prevented a speed limit.

New climate strikes announced

Luisa Neubauer from “Fridays for Future” is not enough so far. “A ‘keep it up’ in eco-liberal” is doomed to failure, the time for excuses is over. “Instead of bringing all the measures together and considering how to distribute them fairly, we have so far seen explorations in which the measures were mutually negotiated,” said Neubauer. That is not a mode in which it can go on.

On the other hand, the climate strikes should continue – in two days in Berlin. So that the pressure remains high on the negotiators in the government district.