Germany’s Election Dodges Its Climate Debacle

The mainstream parties tiptoe around the green fiasco that is devastating the country’s economy

By Joseph C. Sternberg of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"German households and businesses pay among the highest energy prices in the world. The average German household paid 39.5 euro cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity in 2024, compared with 32.1 in Britain, 27.8 in France and 14.9 in the U.S. Midsize industrial users pay 24.8 euro cents per kilowatt hour, better than Britain’s 46.4 but much worse than France’s 16.7 or America’s 7.4."

"Blame a green-energy transition that’s been under way for some 20 years. Germany has steadily removed affordable mainstays such as coal from its power mix, while also phasing out dependable nuclear power."

"Green leader Robert Habeck, the minister for economy and climate change, argues the green transition hasn’t been aggressive enough, and promises heftier taxpayer subsidies for an even faster renewable build-out."

"Germany’s parties can’t admit the depth of the energy disaster because the voters haven’t recognized it themselves. Hence the country is enduring an election campaign about who can better administer a green transition, not whether there ought to be one. Left mostly unasked is whether renewables can power an advanced industrial economy, or whether it even matters to the global climate whether a country of Germany’s modest size decarbonizes."