John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His latest book “In Search of Berlin” is published by Atlantic. He is a regular POLITICO columnist.
This is a tale of two cities, two streets and an unlikely divergence that speaks volumes about the state of politics in Europe today.
Parisian authorities are forging ahead with plans to make the city 100 percent navigable by bike. On the Rue de Rivoli, one can pedal serenely in the knowledge that one lane is solely for cyclists, the other reserved for buses.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, the first major decision taken by the incoming senate was to reopen one of the most famous thoroughfares, which had been partially closed off to vehicles. On Friedrichstrasse, where one could previously drink a coffee on wide wooden benches in the middle of the road, the cars have returned.
So, as Germany heads to the polls on Feb. 23, the country once seen as a climate trailblazer is now in danger of becoming a laggard. And the Christian Democrats (CDU) — the party almost certain to lead the next government — is on a mission to dilute environmental targets, with leader Friedrich Merz framing all things green through the now-familiar “woke” and “anti-growth” lens.
It’s no coincidence that environmental policies were barely mentioned in the first televised election debate between the CDU leader and Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Instead, the questions ranged from migration — which dominated the discourse — to cost of living, kindergarten locations and an arcane battle over the use of gender in the German language.
In a recent stump speech in Bochum, the industrial heartlands of the Ruhr, Merz had already stated that the economic policy of recent years had been geared “almost exclusively toward climate protection. I want to say it clearly as I mean it: We will and we must change that.”
Along these lines, the chancellor-in-waiting has vowed to scrap subsidies for environmentally friendly heat pumps (which brought the Greens so much political trouble last year). He has also described wind turbines as “ugly,” and vowed to bring back nuclear energy.
Of course, some of this is clearly performative — technologically speaking, a nuclear comeback won’t happen — but it is central to Merz’s strategy to give the CDU a more distinctive conservative direction after the centrist era of former Chancellor Angela Merkel. And just how far he goes in rolling back some of the progress will depend on the party’s eventual coalition partner.
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As it stands, an alliance with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) — without Scholz — seems the most likely outcome, not least because they’re less likely to stand in Merz’s way on the environmental front.
Across the Western world, the green movement is on a downward slide. It isn’t just the case in Donald Trump’s America — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled a British version of “grow, baby, grow” by approving plans to expand three of London’s airports. And though the mayor of Paris is pushing hard to green the capital city, French President Emmanuel Macron is showing far less enthusiasm than before.
When Scholz assembled his “traffic light” coalition in December 2021, the Greens were a pivotal player. Having secured a record share of the vote, the party was joining the government for the first time since 2005. And as Robert Habeck — the party’s current candidate for chancellor — took over the country’s Ministry for Economic Affairs with an expanded environmental brief, expectations were high.
Then, two months later, came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly put on a war footing, Habeck’s task was to improvise a new energy policy and extricate Germany from Russia’s clutches. He was on the hunt for secure energy from anywhere, whatever the source, and that included going hat in hand to places like Qatar for supplies of LNG.
The government’s record hasn’t exactly been disastrous, but it has, indeed, been patchy. It has secured some clear successes, particularly in renewable energy — wind and solar power provided 47 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2024, up from 31 percent in 2021. And emissions have steadily fallen, just not at the rate that was hoped for. As a result, Germany is expected to fail to meet its goal of cutting 65 percent of greenhouse gases by 2030, compared to 1990.
According to a report by the country’s Council of Experts on Climate Change last week: “In light of the new geopolitical situation and the cyclical and structural weakness of the German economy, the conflicting objectives of climate protection policy with other policy areas are becoming increasingly apparent.” The language here is studiously diplomatic, but with the target of 1.5 degrees Celsius now a pipe dream, the commission also noted: “The comprehensive embedding of climate policy measures into an overall political strategy is now more important than ever.”
The biggest problem here remains Germany’s car obsession. Too many combustion engine cars are being registered, while sales of electric vehicles fall — just like in other countries. Germany was asleep at the wheel in the first phase of electrification — one of its many failures in innovation. And as spending on infrastructure atrophied, the unreliability of the once-envied Deutsche Bahn has become embedded in the national psyche, leading more people to return to the roads.
It would be unfair to suggest Merz is hostile to the green agenda, per se, but he’s using hostile rhetoric for a reason, trying to portray the cause as inimical to economic recovery. Truth is, he’ll only get so far.
Many targets have already been embedded into the German economy and cannot be unpicked. Whether part of the next government or in opposition, the Greens aren’t going to just disappear — even as the Left party appears to have swallowed up a chunk of the Green vote in recent weeks. Indeed, the party has fallen from its high of 15 percent, but not by much.
Acknowledging just how much the mood has turned, though, even the Greens themselves don’t mention climate protection that much on the campaign trail. They’d rather talk about housing and health care instead. Meanwhile, Habeck is caught in between, the whipping boy for both sides, denounced as metropolitan and “woke” by populists and as a sellout by the left. Much of the movement’s impetus has dissipated — for the moment at least.