The federal government takes from other states what it frowns on in its own country

The world may heal on the German character – thank God these times of overreaching self-confidence in German politics are history. What is present, however, is the ignorant complacency with which the federal government is pursuing its climate policy. Despite the energy crisis, it continues to pursue a policy that stoically counts on the fact that the sun and the wind will do the trick.

In order to be able to stick to this narrative, the federal government takes from other states what it frowns on in its own country. The German energy transition is supposed to recover from the world, so to speak: thanks to the nuclear power plants, fracking, the CCS technology (storage of CO2) of the others.

The federal government's double lottery strategy was evident this week on Olaf Scholz's trip to Scandinavia. There he asked Norway for higher gas supplies, knowing full well that the country's supply capacities are currently exhausted - and the development of further gas fields in the country for climate protection reasons is controversial. But what the heck, the main thing is that you can stay "clean" in Germany.

This should-the-others-should-get-their-fingers-dirty attitude was part of German government back in the Merkel years, such as the hasty phase-out of nuclear power after the tsunami in Fukushima. One can benevolently call this style "risk-averse", viewed more soberly it stands for distrust in technology and engineering.

However, that does not fit in with a coalition that has declared “dare more progress” as its government motto. Progress would be to face the energy crisis with all technological options - from nuclear power to fracking.