German Chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded an international climate deal by 2015, while also declining to push for badly needed fixes to Europe’s ailing carbon cap-and-trade programme. According to Merkel, ‘I believe that we have a good chance by autumn at the latest to get to a better solution for our German problems. Then Germany will also have a chance to tackle the back-loading issue as a whole. That’s what I’m hoping for. But at the moment, that’s not possible against the entire force of the German economy.’
Acting now could slow Germany’s already fragile economy and may jeopardise Merkel’s prospects for re-election, but Rémi Gruet, senior regulatory affairs advisor on climate and environment at the European Wind Energy Association, noted, ‘We might have to wait for October or November for this to move forward, until after the elections, though we would have liked Ms. Merkel to put Germany’s weight behind back-loading as early as possible. Everybody is waiting for Germany.’
However, with Germany backing away from nuclear power, and renewables not yet providing the capacity needed to meet demand, coal is not going to go away soon, even if carbon credits become more expensive. This may well be informing Merkel’s approach, along with an international foot-dragging on a global agreement. Brian Ricketts, secretary general of the European Coal Association, commented, ‘Things are a mess. If you want to solve the climate problem, you have to begin at the international level. It’s going to be very hard to convince Europe to go it alone and impose costs on itself that the rest of the world isn’t accepting.’
Yet, in spite of her party’s scepticism of back-loading, Merkel didn’t seem ready to throw in the towel, but she did strongly hint that Europe is growing weary of trying to lead an unwilling world on efforts to limit global warming. ‘I think it’s completely inappropriate to say Europe doesn’t lead on climate protection anymore because the European Parliament decided narrowly against back-loading,’ she said. ‘Europe does a lot; Europe will continue to do a lot. Our problem, when looking beyond Europe, is more the fact that we are doing everything by ourselves and are facing a difficult economic situation at the same time.’