More Concerning News From Germany
The German constitutional court just struck down a sneaky government move to divert money from a COVID fund to supposedly climate-friendly technology
And if you’re wondering why politicians would try to do such a thing, other than chronic confusion and trickery on principle and for practice, it’s because of a constitutional rule limiting deficit spending to 0.35 percent of GDP, which they bypassed during the pandemic just because.
Their climate minister, Robert Habeck, told the Bundestag last summer that such a court ruling “would pull the floor from under” Germany’s energy transition. Which actually had crashed through the floor anyway, with them firing up coal plants to stave off blackouts due to all their lovely wind, solar and Russian natural gas.
But here’s the weird bit: We keep being told renewables are now both cheaper and more reliable than dirty old oil and gas, never mind coal. So surely they wouldn’t need devious back-door spending of vast sums the state doesn’t have.
They should be saving money. Unless you’re as confused as you are crooked.
Curiously, at least if the EU Observer is to be believed, “academics are calling on decision-makers to reform the [deficit] rules or scrap them altogether.” It seems there’s never a bad time for governments to pile up debt in pursuit of the latest “we can’t afford not to” craze.
And so the journalist found “Jakob Hafele, who is the executive director of ZOE, a think tank headquartered in Cologne, Germany” and doubtless exactly who we were all thinking they should call, to say full spend ahead.
See, renewables are such a great deal that they’re a money pit. EU Observer says:
“It is estimated that Germany needs €240bn in additional climate investment until 2045 and ‘25 percent of that will never have a business case,’ said Hafele.”
If the other 75 percent does, will or might, then we’re down to €60 billion, right?
And if it’s from now until 2045, or 22 years, then it’s €2.7 billion a year.
Which given that Germany’s GDP is roughly $5.5 trillion or €3.68 trillion ought to be loose change from down behind the couch.
Unless of course the green zealots are as wrong about economics as about climate science.
And they certainly seem uneasy about their own math, if they even did it, since they’re saying to push us through to the wonderful, prosperous, clean high-tech deeply satisfying economy of the climate-friendly future Germany needs to bankrupt itself pronto.
See more here climatediscussionnexus
Header image: Die Welt
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