Germany is missing the energy transition – again

Scientists agree: climate change is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace. Sea levels are rising faster, glaciers are melting faster, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, more severe and more intense. Drinking water will become scarce even sooner than feared.

Here are some recent reports on climate change:

• In France and Switzerland, nuclear power plants have to be shut down because the cooling water from nearby rivers has become too warm.
• In Italy and throughout southern Europe, there have been dramatic heat reports across the country.
• In Brandenburg, many forests are burning again.
• But the new FDP chairman, Christian Dürr, said: ‘We are currently enjoying very nice weather, as they used to say.’
• And the new German Minister for Economic Affairs, Katherina Reiche, has responded to the increasingly dramatic climate change by saying: ‘We need to build 20 new gas-fired power stations.’ The old German gas lie, according to which natural gas emits less CO₂ than coal or oil, is to continue to apply in future – come hell or high water! The Minister for Economic Affairs is also driving our country’s economy into the ground.

However, the German federal government is also overlooking the positive developments: 19 smaller countries already supply more than 90 percent of their energy from renewable sources. California, the world’s fourth-largest economy, has generated more solar power from the sun in the last 12 months than from any other energy source. For the first time, this is even more than from gas. And in May 2025 alone, China added more solar energy capacity than Germany has installed in the last 25 years. If there is a real will to do so, the world can be completely supplied with renewable energy in ten or fifteen years. There is no lack of technology. The only thing missing is political will.

They don’t know what they’re doing? No, they’re not doing what they know.

Prices are falling dramatically, not only for solar power, but also for battery storage: by up to 90 percent in recent years. This is unique in the entire history of industry. Investment bank Lazard: ‘Renewable energies remain the most cost-effective form of new power generation without subsidies.’ The same applies to solar and wind power plants with connected storage facilities. Minister for Economic Affairs, please wake up!

But Katherina Reiche considers Germany’s climate targets to be ‘very rigid’ and the local expansion targets for renewable energies to be ‘excessive’. This is both economically and ecologically wrong and long outdated.

The ‘solar world revolution’ is accelerating and the German government is once again missing out on the future. This is one of the main reasons why it is so difficult to finally reduce ‘electricity prices for everyone’ in this country, as promised.

The world is changing – both negatively through climate change and positively through the global solar revolution. But our federal government is still relying on technologies from the day before yesterday. Stefan Stöcker from SPIEGEL rightly writes: The federal government is ‘setting Germany’s course for the future on a sidetrack.’

Source

Franz Alt 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator