For wind power and solar systems: Habeck’s ministry wants to defuse nature conservation

For wind power and solar systems
Habeck’s ministry wants to defuse nature conservation

EU directives prohibit the construction of wind turbines and photovoltaics if rare animal species are affected. Habeck’s new Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection wants to shake these guidelines in order to promote the energy transition.

The new Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection wants the EU Commission to relax nature conservation directives in order to accelerate the expansion of wind power and solar systems in Germany. “As soon as a red kite appears in a planning area, there can in principle no longer be built there,” said State Secretary-designate Sven Giegold to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND). “That has to be changed, because nature conservation is actually about the population and not necessarily about the individual animal,” said Giegold. That is why he advocates the change from “protection of individuals to protection of populations” in the European guidelines.

Giegold told the RND that he had already spoken to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about it. Although he is expecting “trouble with some of the nature conservation associations,” said Giegold. There, too, “a rethinking” has already begun. “If we want to move forward with the expansion of renewables, a change in European nature conservation law is necessary,” he emphasized.

BUND chairman Olaf Bandt contradicted this. “Tinkering with laws does not accelerate the environmentally friendly expansion of renewable energies,” explained Bandt. What is needed is better staffing, digitization and reliable standards as well as early public participation. Giegold’s initiative would help “neither the urgently needed acceleration in the expansion of renewables nor the protection of nature”.

Nabu President Jörg-Andreas Krüger made a similar statement. The main obstacles on the way to the expansion of renewable energies are “a lack of spatial planning in many places and the serious staff shortage in administrations”. “Discussions about the changes in European nature conservation law, however, lead to an old dead end,” he warned.

In its coalition agreement, the Ampel government agreed on a massive expansion of renewable energies. Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck also wants to overturn controversial rules such as the minimum distances between wind turbines and residential buildings and shorten approval processes. The expansion of renewable energies has made slow progress in the past few years because citizens’ initiatives often complain against the planned projects with reference to environmental protection guidelines.

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