The Carbon Dinosaur in Germany

Dates in Germany
>>	6 September 04 City of Dresden Georg Milbradt stand-in, prime minister of the federal state of Saxony (Eastern Germany) receiving the shameful climate killer oscar in Dresden, for his exceptional efforts to promote economically questionable lignite mining and actively furthering the destruction of the 700 year old village of Heuersdorf against the opposition of the villagers.
>>	4 September 04 Village of Heuersdorf Mayor of the small East German village Heuersdorf, Horst Bruchmann, in dinosaur chains, as the coal mining company MIBRAG wants to destroy his 700 years old village to get hands on the lignite underneath it -- with the active help of the regional Government. Experts say the coal for which MIBRAG wants the village to go is enough to feed the nearby power station for four years only. MORE What the unholy alliance of MIBRAG company and the regional government tries to turn Heuersdorf into for ten years now. From the dino party in Heuersdorf
>>	1 + 3 + 4 June 04 City of Bonn, at the Renewables 2004 conference. Friends of the Earth Germany protests against export credits for fossil fuel projects rather than for renewable energies. German environment Minister Juergen Trittin chaining down the Carbon Dinosaur Friends of the Earth Germany's action against export credits for fossil fuel projects
To find out more about the Carbon Dinosaur in Germany and when and where to meet it, please refer to the contact details on the right.

In the mid nineties, former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions 25% by 2005. Initially it seemed that this could be done, from 1990-2000 greenhouse gases were reduced by 19%. However this dramatic reduction was only due to the collapse of industrial producion in East Germany. Recently trends have not been encouraging and GHG emissions have actually increased, for example between the 2002-2003 they rose by 3%.

The principle reason for this is that the four main companies, that dominate the energy industry, have increased their use of coal. The Ministry of the Economy has complemented the move by announced that future energy policy would be based almost exclusively on coal. The stated reason for this regression in energy policy is that coal is cheaper and the supply can be guaranteed. However these plans do not make sense, environmentally of economically. Firstly they do not factor in the enormous costs of dealing with, fossil fuel driven, climate change. Secondly they don't account for the imminent overhaul of German energy production. In the next two decades half the present power sations will need to be replaced as the current carbon dinosaurs are phased out. This is a massive and expensive undertaking, about 10 GW need to be replaced by 2010 and 45 GW by 2020. The costs of replacing these power stations will need to be raised by increasing energy tariffs.

By contrast the cost of renewable energy will fall. Technological advances and increased efficiency will dramatically lower the cost of renewable energy. At the moment 85% of energy is supplied by oil, coal and gas. These fossil fuels are highly subsidized, for example: the mining of coal will be subsidised by 16 Billion € until 2012. Removal of these subsidies will further increase the competitiveness of renewable energy.

The immenent replacement of half the power stations means German energy policy is approaching a crossroads. Clearly it is an excellent opportunity to steer the largest polluter in Europe to greater energy efficiency. To this end there has bee some legislative progress. For example, with the Renewable Energy Sources Act ("Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz" - EEG) the red-green government has initiated many necessary steps in preparing the way.

But there are many obstacles which must be overcome. The liberalisation of energy markets has led to a concentration of power in the hands of four companies (EnBW, Vattenfall, E.ON and RWE). Between them they control both energy production and distribution. Not only do they lack insentives to change but their preeminence means they can obstruct the rise of viable competition, in particular, from smaller decentralised companies who promote efficient and renewable energy.

An important aim for BUND is to influence the direction of future energy production. In the long run the use of fossil energy sources like oil, coal and natural gas has to be substituted by energy-saving, energy-efficiency and renewable energies. For the transitional period, coal has to be substituted by natural gas used in high efficient steam and gas power stations and primarily in cogeneration-plants.

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