The Green Economics Minister is paving the way for a technology that is controversial among climate experts. There is also headwind from within his own ranks.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck’s plans for storing carbon dioxide on the high seas have met with criticism. “We have renewables for climate protection in energy production,” said the climate policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Nina Scheer, to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. You don’t need CO2 storage for this – known in technical jargon as CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage). “It must be excluded from fossil power plants,” said Scheer.
There was also headwind from Habeck’s own ranks: “We don’t see CCS in the energy industry,” said Green climate politician Lisa Badum. This is also what the decisions of the Green parliamentary group provide.
According to Habeck’s plans, climate-damaging CO2 from the cement industry, for example, should also be able to be stored underground in Germany in the future – at least on the high seas. The federal government has fundamentally agreed on a storage strategy and presented it on Monday. Storage on land should remain ruled out for the time being. You can read more about the plans here.
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The left’s top candidate for the European elections, Carola Rackete, also said in the “Augsburger Allgemeine”: “Habeck wants to turn the North Sea into a huge CO2 repository and import massive amounts of fracking gas.” The fatal thing about storing CO2 is that “those responsible for the climate crisis continue to earn huge amounts of money and fuel the climate crisis for even longer instead of converting their own production to be climate-friendly.”
Experts believe the technology’s potential is limited
Habeck, however, received encouragement from the Union faction: “It was high time for the green climate minister to make a move here,” said Jens Spahn (CDU) to the “Tagesspiegel”. “So far, the traffic light has only ever gotten out of technologies, but with CCS it should finally make a bold entry.” Habeck must take an offensive stance “against the renewed skepticism about technology” in his party.
Expert Klaus Wallmann from the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel emphasized that the potential of the technology is limited. “We are talking about around five percent of current emissions in Germany,” Wallmann told the newspapers of the Bavaria media group. “We have to avoid more than 90 percent in other ways. For example, by saving energy and switching to renewable energies.”
