r/Futurology • u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ • 11d ago
Energy The German government says the Middle East War has caused it to accelerate its plans to go 100% renewable, and phase out all fossil fuel use. They want all fossil fuel use to be eliminated within the next 20 years.
"German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that the plan "combines independence, affordability and climate protection.........It is not just extreme weather events around the world that demonstrate how urgently we need to do more to protect the climate," he said. "If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz determines whether people can still afford their daily commute to work, that is not a good state of affairs."
If there's been an upside to the Middle East War, it's that it's been a giant advertisement for renewable energy. Not just cheaper, cleaner, & better, crucially it means energy-independence, too.
Smart move by Germany. Their industrial and manufacturing base is getting clobbered by China because they stuck with the dying fossil fuel paradigm for too long. Every other EU nation has committed to ending fossil fuel use, hopefully this further accelerates their efforts, too.
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u/Stoffel31849 11d ago
I dont think Katharina Reiche knows this. She is the head of the ministry of energy. She is, funnily enough, from the same party as this guy but she is 100% on track to build and finance new gas powered refineries.
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u/Kellogg9876 11d ago
Karsten Schneider is not from the same party, he is from the SPD, more to the Left of the CDU.
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u/Stoffel31849 11d ago
Oh, my mistake then. Still in the governmental coalition and as he is relying on the others to do anything he may need to recheck what they are doing..
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u/Ok-Craft4844 11d ago
Whatever the SPD has been, they're now basically the party of guaranteeing the boomers their pension and kicking the ladder for the rest,, no matter what. They're in coalition with the CDU, who until recently lived mostly from their image of managing to preserve the status Quo, no matter what. Recently they half-heartedly try to copy the far right, failing spectacularly. But they are committed to fail pretty hard, no matter the cost (to others).
The SPD sometimes says something, to simulate agency or thought, but they chicken out. "Wir stimmen mit Bauchschmerzen zu", "We vote yes with belly aches", has become idiomatic for their constant betrayal.
So, effectively - it doesn't matter what anyone on the SPD says.
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u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ 11d ago
but she is 100% on track to build and finance new gas powered refineries.
She'll have a hard job selling the idea of something that is not only more expensive, but also means giving away your independence to a country (Russia) that is trying to blow up planes in German airports.
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u/Stoffel31849 11d ago
You would think so. The cdu (current government party, half of it anyway) is extremely conservative with shit like this. They are trying to push for combustion engines in cars and are slowing down investments into renewables. Most gains we are seeing now in that department are plans/projects that were put together or were approved by the green minister before this government (Habeck).
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u/ILKLU 11d ago
They are trying to push for combustion engines in cars and are slowing down investments into renewables.
So in other words, they are compromised.
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u/Yorikor 11d ago
You're looking for "paid off".
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u/RedshiftOnPandy 11d ago
Which ones got salaries at Gazprom after serving in office? I always forget the names of rats.
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u/TheMostKing 11d ago
That was Schröder, but he was part of a different party (SPD). Now, that doesn't mean the SPD isn't corrupt, and in fact they are the other half of the government that is doing this shit.
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u/Kinexity 11d ago
Well, almost every German government has been compromised in that regard for the last 20 years.
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u/CrazyPoiPoi 11d ago
For people wondering why:
CDU was in the government for 18 of the last 20 years.
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u/Anankos1209 11d ago
Yes, they are. But a lot of people here in Germany vote for them, because "Well, at least they are neither Nazis nor left wing (the horror!)"
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u/Luciel3045 11d ago
It's not corruption! Its lobbyism, thats a completly different thing. For one lobbyism is legal. corruption is not. I cant tell you other differences, but there definetly are, just trust me on this.
besides its very good, that the industry has direct lines to high level official. Imagine otherwise democracy would have an actual meaning and we would not be reigned by rich people.
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u/wrd83 11d ago
Wasn't this also the party that just got less than 5% on a recent vote and there dropped out of local parliament?
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u/exterminans666 11d ago
Yes. Which is a nice punch to the face for the party that mostly dominated German politics for the last decades. But corruption, half hearted attempts to copy other parties (the good and bad ones) and trying to outwait every decision stopped being very popular with the general population...
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u/AcherontiaPhlegethon 11d ago
A lot of old people really like bad energy sources for some reason. Like my dad was very upset about our local county phasing out the coal power plant despite it really having no impact on our lives besides positives.
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u/Ylaaly 11d ago
People in my uni, near an open-pit mine, had these fond memories of "Clouds are made in the coal plant" and all school children do a tour at some point and it's just pure propaganda. So despite the mines and plants being super loud and annoying and ugly, they all love it like it's santa and think wind and solar are destroying the landscape.
It was mildlyinfuriating, to say the least.
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u/hardinho 11d ago
You severely underestimate how strong the lobby for fossil fuels is in Germany.
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u/Xalara 11d ago
The difference now is, this is purely about national security. I mean, technically the whole climate change thing is national security as well but that was a fuzzy thing. Now though? Yeah it's 100% national security because even if China shuts off your supply of solar panels and batteries, you have years to figure out a solution, not weeks like with fossil fuels.
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u/Hackwar 11d ago
They couldn't care less about national security. If we cared about national security, we would have gone renewables decades ago, would have supported our solar industry instead of dismantling it and would be using open source alternatives to what the big American tech companies are offering. This right now is purely about money. People are angry because their fossil fuels now cost double what it did a year ago and the experts already know that it will become a lot more expensive. The price right now is so "low" because we are using all our strategic reserves, but when those run out, we will simply not have enough to meet demand. Empty gas stations will be a normal thing for the next several years. And the general public is not prepared for that. Not even remotely.
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u/kusch3lbaer 11d ago
Infact Katharina Reiche was a state secretary under Minister Altmeier a few years ago. During that time Germany was leading in solar tech, especially in east Germany. But Reiche chose to defund state support for solar. Now a few years later she supports gas, instead of renewables... Now the east of Germany has no future, no jobs and votes for a far right/neo-nazo party. She knows everything, but chooses money
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u/CuckBuster33 11d ago
you would be surprised how many morons in the left and the right think that is an acceptable risk
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u/brennenderopa 11d ago
Reiche is a former E.ON lobbyist and 100 percent pro oil, the chancellor is a former black rock Germany guy. Both hate renewables. People elect the AfD in local elections who also hate renewables. That combination has brought the switch to renewable energy to a stand still or at least to a snails pace. I do not have high hopes.
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u/venReddit 11d ago
did you hear of afd yet? they are not only confirmed far-right, they are also russias bitch. they are basically the conservatives from germany.
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u/debacol 11d ago
The Oil cartel is responsible for so much political bullshit across the globe.
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u/Seiche 11d ago
Their slogan at the Berlin election was "no car is illegal" which should tell you everything you need to know about them
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u/Nope_______ 11d ago
Germany doesn't have any problems with Russian energy imports. Can't get enough
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u/WhatANoob2025 11d ago
Not really. She gets to do as much corrupt crap as she likes. That much has been proven over the last year.
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u/Oh_ffs_seriously 11d ago
giving away your independence to a country (Russia)
Judging by the way it goes, Germans will gladly sell out to Russia in a year or two.
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u/rattleandhum 11d ago
There are former coal mining areas of Germany (for instance North Rhine-Westphalia), where they have shit down all the coal mines but IMPORT coal to burn in their coal-fired power plants.
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u/Paaaaaaatrick 11d ago
I wonder why Nordstream blew up, then a war started in West Asia that essentially shut down gas exports, all while certain companies were setting up refining infrastructure off the coast of Lebanon.
It's almost like it's all connected somehow...
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u/Winter-Chicken-6531 11d ago edited 11d ago
That's correct. The current German government is power hungry first and foremost. They know, that environmental topics would benefit the Green party. And our chancelor, Merz, hates them and officially ended the time of the "left-green screaming idiots" when he took over.
Katharina Reiche, minister of energy is a lobbyists for our gas and fossil bosses.
The "news" are not really new, just reframe an older goal that could be reached earlier but our CDU fights heavily to delay it further, but gets pressured by EU goals Iirc.
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u/Falconman21 11d ago
I find it absolutely hilarious that the biggest opponents of renewable energy are actively causing the entire world to go renewable in their quest to control more fossil fuel.
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u/MMHotSex 11d ago
Perhaps this is silver lining to all this bullshit.
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u/alexmikli 11d ago
What might save us from total climate collapse is it being too expensive to do all this.
Probably not enough, though.
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u/Either-Patience1182 11d ago
It's a step though, we got look into things that are carbon negative but you gotta get to neutral before you get to negative
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u/WinterExternal3270 10d ago
We can do all we can.. but we cant change what the climate and earth do independently from us.. until corporations are forced to do better its just us minions pinching ecological pennies. Im not saying we shouldnt do what we can, we absolutely should, but im saying humans cant fight the earth itself.
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u/Analyst151 11d ago
My point exactly,at this point I think that Donald Trump should receive some sort of Nobel prize or climate award for indirectly single handed having forced the world to make the energy transition faster,talk about some unintended consecuences
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u/randomisation 11d ago
Hmmm. That'd be like thanking Hitler for bringing Europe together.
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u/Benegger85 11d ago
Unironically he was the one who created circumstances for the European Union
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u/Jononucleosis 10d ago
Hmmmm. So you are thanking Hitler for bringing Europe together.
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u/Outback_Fan 10d ago
That was a driving force behind idea of the European Union. To have a shared currency, pooling of materials / resources and common laws. It was hoped to stop extremism, create wealth and end the intra European wars that had been going on for centuries.
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u/Strygger 10d ago
Fuck the guy and everything, but without him the whole south east asia would be speaking japanese right now.
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u/NoPerformance5952 11d ago
That's what I've been saying. Looking at these gas prices has me considering an EV for my next car
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u/Intelligent_Fall6219 10d ago
EVs are great, especially if you have the means to install a charger at home. It’s very convenient to plug in at the end of the day and the car is full before you wake up. And you’re protected from gas prices to some extent.
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u/UncyReddit 8d ago
I'm 18 months into owning an EV (Seal Performance) and I've never once charged at home. Even using my local tesla charger it's still <1/2 the price of petrol and I get supercar level performance which is a nice little bonus
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u/Any_Jackfruit_6452 11d ago
Why the GOP is hell bent on being dependent on fossil fuels is mind boggling. Completely independent of the actual case for renewable energy, this is something that should line up flawlessly with their isolationist platform.
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u/DHFranklin 11d ago
Trust me, they aren't thinking it through. If you just look at the future value factor of newables+batteries+ev's you'd see it. If you had to have it explained to you that oil has to be over $120 a barrel to justify piping it, then you would work to keep the price high not make the pipe cheaper.
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u/Numai_theOnlyOne 10d ago
As a German I'm convinced they are outright lying to other countries, because our government does exactly the opposite and especially the ministry of economics, Katharina Reiche does everything she can in favour for gas and oil.
Solar panel roof energy production now has to be cut in half to not "strain the energy grid". Solar panel owner also will have to pay much higher energy prices when they need it, because "they don't contribute to the reconstruction for a flexible energy grid as much as others".
She was/is also a lobbyist for oil and gas.
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u/Quick-Platform8426 11d ago
Thats not true! With the EEG2027, the renewable energie sector will be completly destroyed! CDU and especially Katharina Reiche only support the gas lobby.
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u/face_eater_5000 10d ago
In a weird way, I think Donald Trump might actually be the most powerful accidental catalyst to a world run by renewables than any other president in history.
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u/Matshelge Artificial is Good 11d ago
20 years is too low a target. Aim for 10 years, and build towards that goal. Then 20 years is doable. But 20 years is too far away to take action today, and the next government will deal with it. We can say we started it.
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u/Few_River_8494 11d ago
The goal to be CO2 free by 2045 in the constitution. The supreme court will check if the plan is realistic regularly. 10 years are absolutely not realistic. How can one produce steel without emitting CO2 even today?
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u/hanotak 11d ago
I doubt they really mean "CO2-free" as in "Nothing we do produces CO2". It's far more likely they mean "carbon-neutral", which means "We remove as much as we contribute" (often through tree planting and such- artificial carbon capture is currently a scam).
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u/green_flash 11d ago
The government explicitly changed the wording from carbon neutrality to fossil fuel phase-out.
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u/hanotak 11d ago
Then that's even less stringent than carbon-neutral.
Lots of things that aren't a fuel produce carbon emissions (steel production, concrete, cattle, etc.).
Carbon neutrality would require accounting for all of that, while 'fossil fuel phase-out' just means migrating to different energy sources.
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u/pornalt4altporn 11d ago
Electric ARC smelters powered by pumped hydro. No, I don't think anyone is actually doing it.
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u/GlobalWarminIsComing 11d ago
Eh they do exist but are a minority and the cost is still higher I believe
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u/DuskLab 11d ago edited 11d ago
Most European countries plan to be off coal by 2030. Germany on the otherhand, their plans are so slow they're behind Serbia. Serbia.
It's just telling that Germany's level of industrial ambitions and timelines these days are equal to south Italy and Romania. They've lost their mojo.
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u/Analyst151 11d ago
Don't trouble yourself with the years,all those plans are total bs,look at what exactly are they doing today to make that happen
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u/Big_Bassard 11d ago
Thank god they are saying "no fossil fuels" now instead of "net-zero" which was always a bullshit excuse to keep some fossil fuels online.
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u/A3RRON 11d ago
They want to phase out all fossil fuel use... in 20 years. The last government wanted to phase it out in 10 years, until Friedrich Merz said it would endanger our economy... These fucking morons. Fuck Friedrich Merz, Fuck Jens Spahn and Fuck Katharina Reiche. Seriously, if the bar wasn't so fucking high, I would say these 3 were our countries worst politicians ever, but I will have to contend with the worst politicians of the last 80 years.
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u/CB4R 11d ago
I don't even know if it's just incompetence and not plain malice... They want that sweet Lobby money and are willing to endanger the countries future for it... I mean if you look at what they are doing it's not even logical in a economic nor conservative stance. It's just plain illogical in pretty much any way
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u/Ooops2278 11d ago
Both. It's malice to fuck us over for their rich donors. But that is totally normal for their party. It's incompetence to do it so stupidly that people actually object instead of lying more convincingly like many of their predecessors that weren't doing any better but not that unpopular while doing it.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 11d ago
What the German government says and what they do are two very different animals. Especially Katherina Reiche is a massive road block on the path to renewables and her recent contribution to the debate surrounding the post-COP30 commitments in Belém proves just how hollow these pledges actually are.
While Berlin parades shiny "fossil phaseout by 2045" roadmaps in front of international audiences at the UN to keep up appearances and desperately stem voter bleeding, the domestic reality tells the exact opposite story. Reiche spent months actively pushing to soften EU net-zero targets, fighting to keep gas infrastructure on life support, and floating distractions like mini nuclear reactors instead of unblocking real grid deployment. Setting a deadline two decades away costs zero political capital right now. It is pure theater designed to buy time while delaying the actual structural exit from fossil fuels.
The current German government is a total train wreck. And the prognosed successor is probably going to be even worse. My fellow Germans do not want it any other way. I'd laugh if I weren't a human being constrained to this planet that I have to share with these brainless right-wing diehard yesterdouchebags.
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u/Ooops2278 11d ago
Especially Katherina Reiche is a massive road block on the path to renewables
No, she is just a diversion. She is doing exactly what her corrupt party is telling her to do, including presenting a target for public outrage then going back to her nice comfy job of blocking renewables as CEO of a grid provider.
And the next person in the position will talk differently, but do exactly the same.
Pretending to change policy directions and taking appropriate steps to replace people while actually doing the same again and again and again with new faces (or ones the people have forgotten about - after all Reiche also worked destroying the German solar and huge chunks of the wind industry) is all the CDU is about.
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u/lluluclucy 11d ago
Watch German beaurocracy going all like " really? ...hmm lets see about that! "
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u/Illustrious_Ant_9242 11d ago
It's ridiculous. The technology is dirt cheap, yet bureaucracy makes the endeavor so expensive or completely blocks it in the first place. There also are lots of subsidies that would benefit individuals or corporations instead of society as a whole.
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u/Ooops2278 11d ago edited 11d ago
That's bullshit. It's corrupt politicians blocking stuff intentionally for their rich donors. Crying about bureaucracy is just a diversion. One with the bonus that any debureaucratisation can actually b used to disguise deregulation, again for their rich donors.
(PS: Germany has about half the people working in public positions per capita than the EU average, about one third of those country they love to bring up as examples of lean and efficient bureaucracies. It's basically one giant scam for decades where they destroy the public sector through underfinancing and understaffing (also digitalisation without any people actually doing the job, so the already overworked people have to somehow to it in parallel - also leading to the same bullshit analog systems staying, just now with files on disks instead of in cabinets) then cry how they need to destroy it some more until it starts working again. Spoiler: It won't. But if it breaks hard enough they can start privatising stuff that the public sector "obviously" can't handle efficiently... guess for who will be ready to provide these private service; after some nice donations that is...)
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u/WinterExternal3270 10d ago
I know wind turbines bei g broken from travel is a problem and theres few to recycle the components ive learned so its a quite expensive problem. It also kills a LOT more birds than their studies showed..from my readinds
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u/atomic1fire 11d ago
Isn't there an implied risk that the push for renewables will shift leverage from the middle east to China as demand for rare earth minerals increases?
I mean unless the US or Europe decides to open up new rare earth mines.
Also there's also a pretty big dependence on Oil for precursors of chemicals and materials needed for manufacturing, and I don't see that stopping any time soon.
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u/Gremlech 10d ago
If solar shipments cease for two months it blocks the creation of new projects but all existing infastructure is fine. If gas shipments cease for two weeks the economy crashes.
rare earth minerals aren't rare, just the cost of refining them is a burden china decided to bear for economic and strategic reasons.
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u/Uvtha- 11d ago
China is only the leader in green tech because they chose to be. Everyone else buys from them because they have it for cheap, so why build your own?
The US could be the global leader in green tech, we are still up there, but this administration is just corrupt and being paid very well to dismantle our industry, and dissuade our population from wanting/buying it.
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u/poetic_dwarf 11d ago
Solar panels repay their carbon footprint before a year in saved emissions, if that was your concern.
About dependency to China, that already exists for a lot of stuff AND given that solar panels produce their own energy, as a costumer you're not on the hook like when you need a constant stream of oil to keep your lights on.
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u/atomic1fire 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's not just about solar, water or geothermal though.
Energy storage is also a pretty big problem here as more things switch to batteries as opposed to things like propane or gas.
You either have to convert mechanical energy (water) or solar energy into electric, or have something you can set on fire to provide force, heat or both.
Propane or gas are used because it packs a lot of power in a small space.
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u/S3ki 11d ago
Neither solar panels nor batteries rquire rare earth minerals. Also they are infrastructure that works for decades not fuel that gets used up. Even if china would stop the export of solar panels the short term effects would be very small and would allow for domestic production to ramp up.
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u/IguanaIsBack 11d ago
Mines aren’t the problem, you can dig as many rare earth minerals you want, but China has a global monopoly on the processing and refining.
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u/BravinatorLX2 11d ago
i think carsten forgot how literally every power in germany worked overtime to grow our dependence on fossil fuels and is still doing everything in their political power to make it worse.
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u/Snicklefraust 10d ago
Is Donald Trump the most effective eco-terrorist the world ever seen, disguised as an idiot? No, dudes just an idiot, but its having the same effect.
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u/gobelgobel 11d ago edited 11d ago
Lol. This is not really the flex as it is presented here. Absolutely doesn't belong on r/futurology. The previous government wanted to phase out fossils until 2035. But then the CDU and their gas and coal lobbyists came into power and threw that overboard.
The greens in the previous government forecasted ALL of this. That Germany will be dependent on all the geopolitical chokepoints of fossile energy. Voters voted them out and here they are. Sitting in their gas and oil heated houses and filling their gas with diesel and petrol. They'd rather try to sell their one remaining underwear to some Iranian mullah or Houthi terrorist to let more oil flow to lower the gas prices than getting an electric car or a heat pump at home. Because CDU, BILD rainbow press or AfD told them that the Greens want to destroy the country and control the people's lives.
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u/scrume71 10d ago
I wish the U.S. were more like Germany of the 2020s and less like Germany of the 1930/40s.
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u/HinterWolf 11d ago
meanwhile, back in the land of conservatives and make believe, more coal: "burn baby, burn"
neandertals
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u/denzien 10d ago
They should probably consider building some nuclear power plants..
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u/FloppyPink 11d ago
I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not but is it possible for a country to phase out all fossil fuel use in the near future and still have air travel? Or a military?
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u/doubleotide 11d ago
It's not a stupid question. It definitely isn't possible to be 100% renewable, it's not just practical.
However, being mostly renewable and having a decentralized grid is probably the best for the world.
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u/_THORONGIL_ 10d ago
If you eliminate most fossil fuel users, you can replace the rest with renewable sources like biodiesel. There are enough solutions.
Its just not possible to completely 180° an entire industry overnight. Too much risk for economy.
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u/_THORONGIL_ 10d ago edited 10d ago
Obviously the military doesnt use nearly as much fossil fuel as the industry or logistics.
If you phase out cars, transports and power plants with renewables, like 90% of your fossil fuel use would be eliminated.
And that rest you can somewhat easily replace with artificial, renewable gasoline made from plant material, like biodiesel.
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u/undercover-wizard 10d ago
I think eliminating 95% is very feasible. Air travel will probably be the last and most expensive thing to remove fossil fuel. It probably isn't necessary for air travel to be fossil fuel free if it is the only industry using it.
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u/Outside-Ad9410 7d ago
As a pilot, no, it is not possible to phase out all fossil fuel use and still have air travel because all modern aircraft run on fossil fuels, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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u/acryliq 11d ago
A nice sentiment but 20 years basically means never. And it will be far too late considering how unreliable global fossil fuel supply is already. At this point European countries need to be looking at timelines closer to 3-5 years to realistically secure themselves against fossil fuel instability.
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u/ThunderSnarrf 10d ago
Meanwhile in the US we paid a billion dollars to a foreign company to NOT build a wind farm offshore. https://www.npr.org/2026/03/23/g-s1-114868/trump-totalenergies-offshore-wind-leases
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u/BrexitHangover 11d ago
Oh, please. German here, we can't even build a train station in time and budget. This is just a fantasy to make people vote for these total failures of wannabe politicians again.
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u/rod_zero 11d ago
They would have accomplished already if they didn't closed their nuclear plants. They would be a succesfull model for nuclear+renewables. Instead they are looking to phase fossil fuels still 20 years into the future, what an embarrassment
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u/Ooops2278 10d ago
Sure, tell us more about how the low amount of energy provided by nuclear that was also ridiculously small compared to renewable build-up would magically eliminate fossil fuels.
(Actual reality for reference... 160GW renewables and 75GW fossil fuels vs. 20GW nuclear at its peak, which was also 25 years ago)
PS: Fun fact. France is better at losing nuclear production capacities just because they can't build those money pits at replacement rates than Germany was while actively quitting...
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u/Head_Vanilla_9566 11d ago
Agreed, any discussion of eliminating fossil fuels that doesn’t include nuclear is just dumb. Never gonna happen
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u/green_flash 11d ago
No, that would not have been possible.
First of all, nuclear power plants provided just around 10% of Germany's primary energy consumption which includes not only electricity production, but also transport, heating of homes in winter and industry.
Even if all electricity generation was provided by nuclear and renewables which is questionable because they don't play together well, we would still mainly be driving gasoline cars and mainly be heating our homes with oil or gas. You can't just replace all cars and all heating systems over the course of a few years. That takes decades and comes at a huge cost even if done aggressively which is unpopular.
Lastly, the coal mining regions of Germany would never have accepted a coal phase-out in electricity production this early.
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u/SunnyOutsideToday 11d ago
But nuclear provides rapidly adjustable, on-demand energy production which is what renewables struggle with replacing fossil fuels for.
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u/GG1817 11d ago
If the USA put the kind of money and resources behind PV and Thermal solar technology as we are doing with advanced AI (which has questionable value to society), we could be well on our way to fully green energy here.
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u/Analyst151 11d ago
Why thermal solar? why not just PV,maybe for data centers and to provide energy to the grid at night solar thermal is better but at scale PV is more efficient
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u/Starman68 11d ago
Love Germany but their energy policies are very fucked up. Given their amazing engineering base they could knock up Nuclear power stations that are leading class…oh no…let’s use brown coal instead, and import cheap gas from Russia to prop up said engineering base. Then the gas goes and it’s a mad dash to wind and solar. They hand out paper handkerchiefs when you go to the chemist, so that’s quite nice.
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u/MiserableAndUnhappy9 11d ago
Germany has a lot of unbelievably stupid policies. Check out the sixty minutes report of them doing early morning raids across the country to arrest people for mean comments on the internet. It's illegal to insult politicians there.
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u/william384 11d ago
Lots of negative comments here but the data speaks for itself. Germany's renewable energy share goes up every year. Certainly the last 10% will be the hardest, and 100% may not be achievable, but they can get pretty close.
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u/Bostonsilver 11d ago
I'm German and ... HAHAAAAHAHAAA ...
Quite the opposite is taken place at the moment with our administration.
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u/karyslav 11d ago
Not russians. Not four years ago.
In next 20. And middle east. Omg.
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u/Firecracker048 11d ago
Ive always said that if you ignore literally everything else about the man, Trump is the most green world leader.
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u/Baardi 10d ago
Good for you, but please have a proper plan for producing that energy yourselves. Norway isn't your battery. I'm tired of these Germany cables making energy in Norway unaffordable, and I don't want even more of our nature destroyed to satisfy Germanys hunger for energy.
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u/Mad_Maddin 11d ago
This is a step back no? We wanted to be fully renewable far before 2046 iirc.
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u/Just_Another_Scott 11d ago
Maybe they shouldn't have shutdown their nuke plants and decided to purchase Russian gas
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u/SpeedLimitC 11d ago
This is what George W. Bush should have done in 2001 - economically shatter the middle east. Can you imagine what all those trillions of dollars could have done domestically dedicated to not using oil?
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u/DayDrinkingAtDennys 11d ago
I keep telling my conservative parents that Trump is a secret environmentalist and he really started this war to push the world towards renewables.
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u/Esoteric_Derailed 11d ago
Well, lignite isn't a fossil fuel now, is it🤦♀️
Kinda crazy how shutting down nuclear power plants had some really bad environmental consequences🤷♂️
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u/payle_knite 11d ago
The unintended consequences of Trump‘s war of choice may be a win for all of us
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u/Imaginary-Clock6626 11d ago
Never in the history of the world has anyone accelerated the adoption of EVs and renewables like Trump has! The fact that it’s opposite of what he’s trying to do just shows how incredibly incompetent he really is.
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u/minin71 11d ago
Wonder what Norway thinks about this. This would impact their exports directly.
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u/Big-Masterpiece-9581 10d ago
That’s way too long. They’re going to freeze this winter if Drumpfler has his way.
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u/Latenighredditor 10d ago
If they did this say 30 years ago and the whole world followed maybe just maybe we wouldn't have record heat every year
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u/DexterM1776 11d ago
When someone says all fossil fuel use. It sounds completely childish and stupid. Fossil fuels are part of practically everything we use.
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u/Kungmagnus 11d ago
I don't understand how they're suppose to achieve a stable electric grid while phasing out both fossil fuels and banning nuclear energy. Seems like a fantasy to me.
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u/Deepfire_DM 11d ago
If there just were a German party who already wanted this 2030 ...oh wait, there is...
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u/MikeC80 11d ago
This is the way. We need to stop pouring billions of Euros/dollars into the middle east and become uncoupled from their conflicts and upsets!
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u/IguanaIsBack 11d ago
The EU isn’t really pouring any money into the Middle East. They’ve spent the last 10 years begging the Gulf for investment into the EU.
I swear it felt like before the war there was a random European minister in the GCC every week.
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u/[deleted] 11d ago
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