Olaf Scholz’s government wanted to be a pioneer in climate protection. The effort has come at a very high political price.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or so many politicians in Germany’s three-party ruling coalition are now discovering.
Germany’s parliament is set to pass a new bill on Friday to reduce the country’s carbon footprint by mandating changes to the way Germans heat their homes and buildings.
Months of pained negotiations over the heating bill caused public infighting within Germany’s ruling coalition and sparked an unexpectedly sharp backlash across much of the country.
While the coalition has the votes it needs to pass the law without help from opposition parties, it’s likely to prove a pyrrhic victory, with the popularity of the government now near record lows.
At the same time, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has sought to exploit dissatisfaction over the law, and political experts say it’s one cause for the party’s recent sharp rise in polls.
For these reasons, Germany’s new heating law has come to represent a cautionary tale with implications far beyond Germany. While many voters appear to support measures to reduce carbon emissions in the abstract, things get more complicated when it comes to mandates that concern something as personal as their own homes.
Attacks from within and without
The new law effectively will ban new installations of oil and gas heating systems in the coming years in favor of heat pumps that rely largely on renewable energy.
It’s main advocate within Germany’s coalition government has been Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens, once the country’s most popular politician, but whose popularity has plummeted in recent months.
Members of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), concerned about how the law would play out among their economically liberal voters, have attacked Habeck so sharply, it has at times been difficult to discern that the parties are part of the same coalition.
Source : politico.eu
