Guest article on climate policy
CDU and CSU must discard their despondency
A guest contribution by Thomas Heilmann, CDU
01/25/2023, 7:42 p.m
The federal chairman of the KlimaUnion, the CDU member of the Bundestag Thomas Heilmann, calls for more consistency in climate protection from his party. His plea: The energy transition can only succeed if it is driven by the market economy and with a change in thinking on all sides.
Can the Union climate? The answer to this question will be forward-looking. The commitment of the CDU and CSU, which has existed for some time, will only be credible if they accept the magnitude of the task and present politically consistent concepts.
Beginning in 1969, we Christian Democrats experienced bitter years of opposition. Important changes of this time such as the processing of the legacies of National Socialism, greater co-determination and above all Ostpolitik are undisputed results of this time today. At that time, the majority of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group largely abstained from the treaties with the East in the Bundestag, a symbol of an ambivalent attitude. Lip service – at the time to coming to terms with the post-war period and to reconciliation with the East – could not hide the lack of orientation at the time. Opinions within her parliamentary group were divided. This is another reason why the Union lost the Bundestag elections 50 years ago and thus for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany its position as the strongest parliamentary group.
Today, climate change demands smart clarity. Anyone who primarily discusses the illegality of “last generation” or research into nuclear fusion, or who even wants to slow down the turnaround in transport, is sending misleading signals. Anyone who wants to be a climate party not only needs knowledge of the incomprehensible human and financial consequences of global warming, but above all an understanding of what a new world energy infrastructure could look like and what historical economic and ecological opportunities it holds. However, this potential can only be achieved after enormous investments. Anyone who now thinks that states, as a matter of priority, can master this successfully, misjudges the magnitude of the task, the weaknesses of every state economy and the effectiveness of competition.
Better for everyone to leave the fossil age
Here lies the task of the Union with its tradition of overcoming economic challenges with market-based means. We want climate protection as a driver of prosperity. It doesn’t help to just conjure up an impending apocalypse. What is needed is to act out of reason that it is better for all people to leave the fossil age now and build a new sustainable energy infrastructure.
This infrastructure takes advantage of our current capabilities. We use innovations and digital control to lure the new providers to produce or store electricity exactly when there is a need. In the much-cited dark doldrums, even base-load power plants offer too little. If you build so many large power plants with base load capability that peaks can also be covered, you would remain in the old centralized system and the costs would be far too high.
The competition brings us the necessary flexible solutions. We already know six climate-neutral answers, each of which can provide 10 to 30 percent of the respective electricity requirement: geothermal energy, hydropower and biopower, price incentives to save at the right time, swarm storage in private households, large-scale storage (with various technologies) and gas power plants that work with hydrogen.
The new system will be cheaper
It is always wrongly said that the renewables have received a particularly large number of subsidies. In fact, state subsidies for nuclear power and coal, i.e. for the old large-scale base load systems, have tripled in the history of the Federal Republic: well over 700 billion euros in subsidies. This does not include the multi-billion euros for final storage, the coal penny and the grid fees, and the environmental damage anyway.
The new system will be cheaper, even if we first have to invest a lot in the conversion. It would also be amazing if, nearly 150 years after the invention of our current energy system, we couldn’t find something more efficient today. Our transport and communication networks no longer work like they did in the middle of the last century. The conversion requires not only investments, but also cutting off the milking out of the old investments. Whoever sits on an oil well naturally has a great interest in selling every liter. On depreciated plants, this always remains big business, the profiteers of which openly, but also like to hide, hinder climate protection.
The German economy was also quite skeptical ten or twenty years ago. That has changed fundamentally, not only in Germany. Many companies are pushing for the conversion – and are demanding clear rules. This includes the calculable and reliable pricing of climate and environmental damage in the fossil competition, i.e. eliminating previous earnings at the expense of others, open competition and good investment conditions. On the other hand, if the traffic light wants the state to build the hydrogen infrastructure, that’s not a good idea. As much as the federal government rightly pushes the expansion of renewable energies, it is wrong in its belief in state control.
prosperity for all
Better news is coming from Europe. In the trialogue at the turn of the year, emissions trading was expanded to include transport and buildings across Europe – a fundamental decision that made the old system more expensive and thus opened up space for something new that is increasingly paying off. At the same time, the next step was developed as to how non-European competition should be treated more or less equally via border adjustment payments.
The newly conceived world promises hardly imaginable advantages. We have more resources at our disposal than we could ever use. Renewable energies can be produced almost indefinitely. With plenty of energy there is enough drinking water and thus food. We are sitting on an overflow of information and ideas, enhanced by artificial intelligence, which is much better at synchronizing demand and supply. Driven by human creativity and demanding customers, the private sector is moving towards value-oriented and sustainable management. As Christian and market-economy parties, the CDU and CSU must vigorously promote this development. Only then will our climate protection work consistently and our commitment to the Paris climate goals be credible.
After the Second World War, the Union braced itself against any despondency. Reconstruction was approached with optimism based on the belief in the market economy – despite 12 million refugees and devastating destruction. This is also the right attitude for the energy transition, which is nothing less than a total restructuring of our energy infrastructure and thus a re-establishment of our prosperity for everyone.
Thomas Heilman is a member of the Bundestag, a member of the executive committee of the Union parliamentary group and of the committee for climate and energy, and has been the federal chairman of the KlimaUnion for almost a year.