The affront had to be washed away. Climate activist Greta Thunberg arrested by German police during a demonstration against the extension of a coal mine, Tuesday January 17, it does not fit with the ambition of a country whose environmentalists are in power . Even if they share it with their liberal and social democratic allies. Half an hour before the passage of the head of the German government at the podium of the World Economic Forum in Davos, this Wednesday, January 18, the former American vice-president Al Gore, veteran of the climate cause, had given his support to the demonstrators.
That is why Chancellor Olaf Scholz, caught between radical environmentalists on one side and Ukrainian pressure for Leopard heavy tanks on the other, has sought to distance himself. The only leader of a G7 country to have made the trip to Switzerland this year, he detailed his battle plan to make his country the world leader in the fight against climate change and at the same time restore the competitiveness of its industry. . A plan dressed in a martial slogan.
“Our transformation to a carbon-neutral economy, the most fundamental task of this century, takes on new momentumhe assured. Not despite, but because of the war in Ukraine [déclenchée fin février 2022]. » He wants as proof of the dynamism of his country, and of the failure of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the fact that Germany, prisoner of Russian gas deliveries on the eve of the offensive, managed to free itself from it. almost completely in less than a year.
great national cause
“It took us a few months to install two liquefied gas import terminals when it took us twenty years to build Berlin airport! », mocked the day before, still in Davos, the German finance minister, Christian Lindner. The great national cause is now that of renewable energies and hydrogen. In 2030, 80% of the country’s electricity production will be produced using renewable energies.
” At the same time, added the Chancellor, our electricity needs will have increased by 600 terawatt hours [TWh] today at 750 TWh, and we expect this figure to double again in the next decade. » An evolution driven by the needs of its powerful industry. According to him, this represents an investment effort of 400 billion euros.
To multiply solar and especially wind installations, the government passed its own acceleration law, like the one passed in France on January 10. This aims to reduce administrative formalities and shorten network connection authorizations by two years. “Obstacles will be swept away”, says the Chancellor. The state is going to help what Olaf Scholz calls a “boom of electrolysis”a hydrogen economy that will make Germany, and Europe behind, independent of fossil fuels.
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