The young Swedish Climate activist Greta Thunberg has a point with her blah blah blah criticism of global leaders talking a big game yet doing nothing or in some circumstances worse than nothing. If carbon emissions are an existential threat then scarce resources must be allocated with sustainable level headed purpose.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's emotional reaction to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster was to summarily execute her carbon free ally, the seventeen nuclear power plants providing 30% of Germany’s overall power at the turn of the millennium. That decision let the climate boulder down and like for Sysphus made for a start from zero rather than progressing from a higher level. The hybrid mix of Wind and Solar projects though carbon free require fossil fueled backup power to fill in when the wind don’t blow and the Sun don’t shine. Backup that was met with old coal fired plants using bituminous coal, the world’s dirtiest, coming from politically influential union operated local mines. The result was that while the Climate Chancellor talked a good game she failed egregiously to meet her carbon reduction goals on the other hand the United States reduced its emissions by replacing coal powered plants with fracked gas ones despite Donald Trump publicly disparaging climate initiatives and resigning from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Today there is a natural gas shortage so that attempts to get off dirty coal for back up power falters. The fact is that natural gas is a fossil fuel and the hybrid combination on top of the Nuclear power Germany previously had would have required much less intermittent fuel. Besides, natural gas when poorly handled, as Russian sourced gas is likely to be, emits methane gas which is thirty times worse than CO2 for retaining heat within the atmosphere. For Germany to start reaching its goals it has to recognize what a poor decision it was to kill off its best ally. Merkel’s replacement Chancellor Olaf Sholz has to make the politically difficult decision for the climate and Germany’s energy security to resurrect as many of the nuclear plants being dismantled as soon as practically possible.
German climate minister says country set to miss 2022 emission reduction targets
