More than degrees Celsius, we are going to talk about money at COP 28. A brief look at the press in the countries of the “South” is enough to convince us: in New Delhi as in Nairobi, it is in hard dollars and stumbling blocks that will assess the success of the new international climate conference which opened on November 30 in Dubai. This money is the one that the developed countries, historical polluters, have committed to paying into the fund dedicated to losses and damages, but it is also the one that the countries of the South need for investments in their own transition. The amounts are enormous. In his report African Economic Outlook 2023, The African Development Bank estimates that the continent will need at least $2.8 trillion until 2030 to implement its climate commitments.
Looking at the very first day of the conference, the message was received. German Secretary of State for Climate Action, Jennifer Morgan, expressed her “pride” in announcing that Germany would contribute 100 million euros to the “loss and damage” fund, intended to compensate for the effects of change climate suffered by poor countries. The gesture is symbolic… in both senses of the word. It is indeed important that the rich countries commit themselves from the first day of the conference to show that they understand the expectations of the countries of the South. And the fact that Germany is taking this initiative, together with the conference host country, the United Arab Emirates, matters. But, in view of the substantial role that Germany could and should have played in the fight for the climate, this announcement seems largely derisory.
“Germany is too big for Europe, but too small for the world.” These words attributed to Henry Kissinger sum up quite well what German ambition was when it launched its energy, its energy turning point: it was going to show the world what the energy policy of a large industrial nation was based on renewable energies and the phase-out of nuclear power. Obviously, the reality was different because, at the heart of this great policy, was the great unsaid Russian gas, which alone allowed this edifice to hold up as a trompe-l’oeil. The fact remains that, in the eyes of German political, industrial and intellectual leaders, theEnergiewende also had a messianic dimension rare enough in German politics to be underlined. Far beyond its borders, well beyond even the borders of Europe, Germany dared to take on the world by promoting a new energy model. And there was a time when the Germans were not a little proud that the word Energiewende was also – positively – known as the word Kindergarten worldwide.
This era is over: since the war in Ukraine revealed that this policy was a colossus with feet of clay, a Potemkin village, no more marketing of the great German energy policy! Germany not only no longer has an energy model to offer to the world, but even appears to be a counter-model. The very day she promises 100 million dollars to help poor countries face climate change, a new episode of the impasses of theEnergiewende is coming to light: electricity distribution network managers announce that German consumers will have to occasionally reduce their electricity consumption in 2024 to recharge their car or use their heat pump. 500 billion euros invested in the development of renewables since 2000 and, since the start of the war in Ukraine, 290 billion to support the German economy, weaned off cheap Russian gas, to get there…
Back to Kissinger: “An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons of diplomacy.” And a credible and replicable energy policy, led by a major industrial power, is how many years of negotiation gained to convince all States to accelerate the energy transition?