Angela Merkel’s CDU (with their Bavarian sidekicks, the CSU) and the free-market FDP – the main winner of Germany’s federal elections – will form the next governing coalition. This is almost certainly bad news for German climate change policy – both domestically and on the international stage – but the policy setbacks in this area …
In the uncertain time when noone is quite sure whether their governments, politicians and parties will be more or less Obama-esque in their approach to solving climate change in a severe economic downturn. So a look back at some of the past months’ highlights in German climate change policy over the past few months: 1) …
Sometimes, no news is good news. In a week in which Obama gave US states the ability to enforce tough new standards on car fuel efficiency and emissions, German policymakers managed a last minute turnaround to prevent doing the opposite. The audacity of claiming a shift to environmentally friendly car taxation, while preparing a tax …
Sigmar Gabriel, minister for the environment and former prime minister of lower Saxony, welcomed the second ‘Konjunkturpaket’ (stimulus package), as a chance for both job creation and the environment. Public investment would be subject to environmental guidelines, while changing car taxation to a CO² basis and paying car owners to get rid of old cars …
