If all gas pipelines in Germany were laid one after the other – how far would they get? Far beyond the moon. Or: once there and almost half back again. It's 511,000 kilometers, surprisingly many. Now Germany would not be Germany if the road network were not even longer: about 830,000 kilometers, of which 13,200 are motorways, and that in a country that measures no more than 1000 kilometers at its longest point.
Edo Reents
Editor in the arts section.
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These figures illustrate how developed the infrastructure is in two areas that play a significant role in the change and thus in the increasingly urgent protection of the climate. No matter how often one can dismissively point out that we should not overdo it with climate policy, when the Chinese, the Americans and the Indians... The figures also illustrate what is at stake or at stake and how profound the change that will come one way or another will be – the only question is how fast? It is definitely a topic where you still get cold feet even in spring.
"Ban on oil and gas heating, end for the combustion engine – Is that really thought through?" was the headline of the program "Anne Will" on Sunday evening in Das Erste. It soon became clear that asking the question already means answering it. The – and that's all it is for the time being – draft from the green house Habeck (economy/energy) provides for 1 January 2024 to only allow and install new heating systems that run on at least 65 percent renewable energies. No one in the group considered this deadline to be realistic, neither logistically nor, as they say, socially, not even the Green co-chief Omid Nouripour, who left a moderate impression on the whole and at most got into trouble with the CDU middle class chairman Gitta Connemann.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr, who was quite binding, tried the category that is currently used a little too often in his party: "openness to technology". It is already hanging out of your neck: in no case bans, but innovation, incentives, do one thing, but also not leave the other. But maybe that's not quite so wrong at this point. This starts with the fact that it is still completely unclear who will be able to afford a necessary heat pump for 25,000 to 30,000 euros alone in the future, quite apart from the question of whether there will be enough craftsmen to install the things.
The state wants to promote again
However, it quickly emerged that Habeck's draft also states that the "fulfillment effort" would be "submitted". Nouripour spoke, as the pleasantly moderating Anne Will found: "nonchalantly" of support programs, which the state then had to set up (add: once again). And that was the moment when Henrike Roßbach, Berlin economic correspondent of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", former editor of the F.A.Z., played out her analytical abilities for the first, but not the last, and referred to the "fundamental" party differences within the governing coalition, especially with regard to the role of the state. She was allowed to assume as known how the three colors think about it.
It was, Roßbach specified, the question: "How much money is enough?" At some point, and here FDP man Dürr was completely of her opinion, the state would have to return to a reasonable economic mode. Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) was also skeptical as to whether it was done with the provision of more and more and ever new money. Connemann did not miss the opportunity to point out that the traffic light coalition had it anyway and in a record-breaking way with the debt, but it was easy that the other discussants tried the 16-year argument: the time that had just been wasted under Angela Merkel's CDU, namely in questions of building conversion as well as overall infrastructure renovation and conversion in the country.
It was also about cars
The fact that – the pun may be allowed at night – the citizens will soon be burned out, so that will not happen. Time and again, the comment of FDP leader Lindner was attempted, who had said smugly that the draft of pen pal Habeck was well-intentioned in terms of climate policy, but had to return to the "assembly hall". I-am-plumber-by-profession: One almost wanted to sing with Reinhard Mey in this tangible, hardly ever really belligerent show, which finally had to take the curve in the direction of a very hot iron: the combustion engine. Here the positions were already known before.
Christian Dürr's technological optimism about the usability of e-fuels was a little surprising. The rest agreed: not worth it for cars, too expensive to manufacture, too inefficient. The fact that German carmakers relied on it would have been new to Stephan Weil – and he had to know it as a VW supervisory board. In any case, and the others were of the same opinion, German car manufacturers would continue to build their combustion engines beyond 2035 and then export even more to other countries.
This Anne Will broadcast brought nothing that had not already been heard in recent weeks. But it was properly managed and at no time left any doubt about the premise, which probably no one will deny anymore. Let's say it with Nobert Blüm: One thing is certain – climate change.