Transatlantic Politics

Guess what: these pretty windmills have no impact in reducing CO2 emissions. At least not in Europe, world leader against climate change.

This is what the German Green Party secretely acknowledges, in emails obtained by Spiegel Online.

Here is how it goes: the EU has set up this emission trading system. Heavy pollutors and energy companies can buy them. It’s supposed to be an incentive to switch to eco-friendly technologies.

But in fact, the actual amount of CO2 stays the same, no matter how many wind turbines the Europeans erect.

Not to mention the fact that in Germany, for instance - leading country in renewable energy technologies - the more companies make the switch to renewables, the cheaper CO2 certificates get. So in fact, the incentive is the other way around, giving energy companies a reason not to invest in such costly technologies with no impact.

It’s the economy, stupid!

That is exactly what happened in recent trading. A certificate to emit a ton of CO2 cost almost nothing. As a result, there was very little incentive for big energy companies to invest in climate friendly technologies.On the contrary. Germany was able to sell unused certificates across Europe — to coal companies in countries like Poland or Slovakia, for example. Thanks to Germany’s wind turbines, these companies were then able to emit more greenhouse gases than originally planned. Given the often lower efficiency of Eastern European power plants, this is anything but environmentally beneficial.

Indeed, when it comes to climage change, investments in wind and solar energy are not very efficient. Preventing one ton of CO2 emissions requires a relatively large amount of money. Other measures, especially building renovations, cost much less — and have the same effect.

"Do the Greens think that this problem (of climate change) will solve itself if we just screw solar panels onto our rooftops?" says one e-mail.

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