The climate Friday used the long Bavarian Christmas holidays for relaxation and is only now reporting back. Pretty late therefore: Happy New Year!
I hope you don’t have any New Year’s resolutions, or at least not particularly ambitious ones, because they tend to go awry, especially if it’s something in the “exercise more” or “eat healthier” category. If you just can’t stop making attachments, maybe give it a try with an if-then rule (SZ Plus), that should help. But if you ask me, the safest option remains: no resolutions – no failure (although I honestly have to admit that I’ve already failed at the resolution to stick to it).
Someone who, despite all this, has a lot planned for the new year – and I don’t even know what he might be planning in terms of sport or nutrition – is Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck. On Tuesday he presented his “opening balance sheet”, I don’t know why it’s called the opening balance sheet when one normally only takes stock at the end, but please. Habeck has therefore calculated what has happened so far in climate protection and, unsurprisingly, found that it is not enough at the back and the front.
But what is more interesting is what he explained when it came to the “opening”. Now things should move forward, Habeck’s Greens have also stepped up as the governing party for this, and quickly. Two legislative packages are to come in by the summer, which are intended to massively accelerate the expansion of renewables. Among other things, a solar acceleration package is planned, a heat strategy, a hydrogen offensive, approval procedures should be faster, and a dog named Waldi can also be prepared for something (SZ Plus).
In short: Habeck wants to bring about a new social awakening. In order for that to succeed, he wants to talk to as many people as possible, take them along and convince them. Will that work? The odds are about 50:50, says my colleague Michael Bauchmüller. But if, he writes, it could change the country more than all the new wind turbines put together (SZ Plus).
In any case, it would be nice if Habeck’s plans were to be more successful than many other New Year’s resolutions.