"German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that the plan “combines independence, affordability and climate protection…It is not just extreme weather events around the world that demonstrate how urgently we need to do more to protect the climate,” he said. “If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz determines whether people can still afford their daily commute to work, that is not a good state of affairs.”
If there’s been an upside to the Middle East War, it’s that it’s been a giant advertisement for renewable energy. Not just cheaper, cleaner, & better, crucially it means energy-independence, too.
Smart move by Germany. Their industrial and manufacturing base is getting clobbered by China because they stuck with the dying fossil fuel paradigm for too long. Every other EU nation has committed to ending fossil fuel use, hopefully this further accelerates their efforts, too.
The article is mostly about petrol for cars, it briefly mentions reliance on gas (for electricity). Do germans have gas connections to heat their house and cook?
Yes
Though I assume that this is also being phased out?
Partly just through economics. As solar generation becomes more democratised, running things off a power source you can’t generate yourself becomes less attractive.
That is kind of a secondary,natural effect, I guess. Basically most of the new heating systems installed are heat pumps, because those make more sense economically. So the gas delivery network will get more expensive with dwindling users, making gas prices rise even quicker than the resource price itself.
Leaving people who can’t afford it behind