Merkel’s Madness: €7,6 trillion For Germany’s climate project

German Chancellor Merkel surveys an offshore wind site [image credit: evwind.es]

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Germany looks set to win the title of biggest punter in the climate gambling game. Believing in failing climate models and alarmist propaganda can lead to some amazingly poor political decisions, but this one surely takes the cake for its extravagance.

Angela Merkel has called for a further tightening of Germany’s climate target – the nation should become CO2-neutral. By 2035, the costs will be twice of Germany’s economic output of a whole year.

For Angela Merkel, these are just a few words: “We want to be climate neutral by 2050”,
say Fritz Vahrenholt & Roland Tichy.

In the devotional mood at the Protestant Church Congress in Dortmund, where the Chancellor spoke these words, the faithful applauded her. No wonder: After all, the former investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker had announced ex cathedra – as president of the Kirchentag: “Anyone who does not acknowledge that climate change is man-made has no place at the Kirchentag.”

It is no longer a question of scientific debate and research, but of a new dogma of faith – who would dare to have any doubts if his name were not Galileo Galilei?

The Chancellor was able to bask in glow of the unity that religion offers the heart. Who wants to calculate what it means financially for German households if words are followed by deeds? The Chancellor now doesn’t want “any more chicken feed” in climate policy, as she had already announced a few days earlier to her MPs of the parliamentary CDU/CSU party group.

The Fridays for Future demonstrations demand a reduction of CO2 emissions to zero by 2035, the PR disaster caused by Youtuber Rezo’s “The Destruction of the CDU” video and the election successes of the Greens have obviously had an effect on the Chancellor.

People remember 2011 and Markel’s rash decision to prematurely abandon nuclear power. When the German chancellor believes that Germans want to save the world, she decides very quickly, whatever the cost. Only votes and public mood counts. Economic or other rational considerations no longer play any role – just like her decision to open the border for all and sundry. And now the jump onto the climate bandwagon because of demonstrating pupils and singing Protestants.

After a two-hour visit to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) on 14 June, Merkel apparently decided to turn German climate policy on its head. After his discussion with Merkel, PIK Director Ottmar Edenhofer announced euphorically: “Following the financial crisis and the refugee crisis, the Chancellor is now tackling the climate crisis”. Well then, one is tempted to add, what could go wrong with that!

“Pillepalle” (chicken feed) – by this Merkel apparently means the previous CO2 reduction target of 90% by 2050. Once – in 1994 – the then head of Deutsche Bank Hilmar Kopper had caused outrage because he arrogantly described the sum of 50 million German marks as “peanuts”. It became the ‘worst word of the year.’

But what is Merkel’s Pillepalle in comparison? It is a number with twelve instead of seven zeros behind the number five. With so many zeros, the citizen’s perspective and the Chancellor’s overview are quickly lost.

It amounts to about 4,600 billion euros, but it could also be 5,000 billion, i.e. 4.6 or five trillion. This was calculated by experts from the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German Academy of Engineering Sciences and the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities for their report published in November 2017 (“Sector coupling – Studies and considerations for the development of an integrated energy system”).

Per household in Germany, this total would mean additional monthly costs of either 640 euros (if the reduction is to be achieved by 2035) or 320 euros if the reduction is to be achieved by 2050. Monthly, mind you, not annually. So this is Merkel’s Pillepalle from the point of view of the people who have to pay for it.

The decisive finding from this research – financed by the Federal Government – is not only the astronomical sum of investment, capital and operating costs. When it comes to saving emissions, it’s the same as in competitive sports: the necessary training effort for further performance improvements increases as you get closer to the absolute maximum of what’s possible.

This means that every additional CO2 reduction step is significantly more expensive than the previous one.

Continued here.