Column: What worries Würmser
Five marks for change
Why is everyone so upset about the high fuel prices? After almost a quarter of a century, they are now at the level that the Greens were already demanding when trucks were still running on Euro 2 and the pumps were labeled in Deutschmarks. At the time, it said 1.14 Deutschmarks for a liter of diesel and 1.59 for Super, the equivalent of 58 and 81 cents respectively. At their federal delegates' conference in 1998 - the year Gerhard Schröder became Chancellor - Bündnis 90/Die Grünen wrote the so-called five-mark resolution into their election manifesto. It states that the price of a liter of petrol must be gradually raised to five marks.
That's a wrap. It wasn't planned that way, but it fits: Climate neutrality is the order of the day and transport plays a major role in this. One third of traffic emissions in Germany are caused by road freight transport alone. And who can seriously deny that change in general and towards e-mobility in particular is best achieved through price. At best, some aid packages will have to be put together; after all, disruption is not the job of politicians. It must ensure continuity, security and peace, and mitigate the consequences of transformation in order to involve as many sections of society as possible. After all, it won't get any cheaper with a capital E in front of mobility, rather more complicated, not necessarily better, at best different. What remains is the good conscience of saving the world, and even that is doubtful when you consider that Germany contributes just 1.8% to global CO2 emissions, while China emits over 30% and therefore twice as much CO2 as all OECD countries combined.
Germany is good at putting itself at the forefront of idealistic movements that don't really exist. It is honorable, but also pointless, utopian and addictive to reduce CO2 emissions to zero when at the same time more oil than ever is being burned worldwide, the climate protocols are not worth the paper they are written on and coal-fired power plants are being built in over 30 countries, with China and India alone currently building hundreds of them.
Goals must be realistic and achievable, otherwise we will lose motivation, and the fundamental question must be: How do we move from a growth-oriented consumer society to a climate-neutral circular economy?
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