Green Party’s Dröge Criticizes Carsten Schneider’s Appointment as Environment and Climate Protection Minister
Katharina Dröge, the chairwoman of the Green Party faction in the Bundestag, has expressed criticism towards the appointment of Carsten Schneider as the Environment and Climate Protection Minister. In the past, Schneider had positioned himself against the climate protection during the coal phase-out, Dröge stated in the RTL and ntv morning show, Frühstart, on Tuesday.
Dröge demands that Schneider needs to prove that he is not just a minister, but actually wants to make progress in climate protection within his ministry. She points out that given the setbacks in the coalition agreement, such as the lack of progress in the heat transition or the coal phase-out, Schneider must ensure that the Black-Red coalition makes at least some progress on this issue.
The Green Party faction leader has a mixed assessment of Olaf Scholz’s chancellorship. “At the end of the day, he did not do what a chancellor should do, which is to hold the coalition together” Dröge said. Scholz is held responsible for the fact that the coalition did not manage to last beyond three and a half years. “He did not show enough leadership” Dröge added. However, she praised Scholz for taking on the responsibility for the country in a time characterized by crises, especially after the Russian attack on Ukraine. The coalition made big and far-reaching decisions together.
Dröge does not believe that the Greens will have to wait another 16 years like after 2005 for their next participation in a government. “Our goal is that the Greens are involved in the next federal government again.”
Schneider has recently maintained the coal phase-out until 2038, which was proposed by the so-called Coal Commission in 2018 and ultimately enshrined in the Coal Exit Act in 2020. However, the previous coalition of Union and SPD had already specified in the 2021 Climate Protection Act for the energy sector annual emission amounts that would have necessitated an earlier coal phase-out.
Calculations by the Council of Experts on Environmental Issues in 2024 suggest that the planned emissions by the federal government exceed the CO2 budget that the Federal Constitutional Court had criticized in 2021, making an earlier phase-out necessary. Experts also believe that the EU Emissions Trading System will lead to coal-fired power plants in Germany becoming unprofitable in the early 2030s.