It's absurd that such an economic powerhouse still relies on coal so much. If Germany, with all its wealth, is still dragging coal power out to 2038, how are we supposed to expect timely movement from poorer countries?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/604946/per-capita-coal-c...
Edit: sorry that link got pay walled. Try this one.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-per-capi...
This is 2015 data - and the US has narrowed the gap since.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
If you look at the 2017 BP energy report numbers the US is still about 20% above Germany in coal consumption per capita. (Not sure when 2018 numbers come out.)
I'm glad to see the US is reducing emissions. However ideally it wouldn't be due to swapping one fossil fuel for another. Makes you wonder what will happen if the prices of coal/gas flip again.
They are still a top 5 world economy.
I wonder if it's due to the monopoly structures of the energy business shielding them from the changes that the rest of the world has been seeing. I wonder how much of the coal is used for electricity vs steel making etc.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-per-capi...
Of course, things are changing in Germany. In the last year, there were week-long left-wing protests against clearing an old-growth forest for coal mining, which brought attention to the issue and might trigger some change. However, Greenpeace Germany's suggestion to shut off coal and switch to burning natural gas instead is met with some resistance across the political spectrum, given that Germany cannot procure gas from anywhere but Russia, and EU-Russian relationships are somewhat cool recently.
We'll see where we end up, I guess. In any case, Germany is still a much greener country than e.g. the United States, who recently stopped promoting climate protection policies altogether. Until we have convinced the United States that they need to protect the environment, there is scarce leverage (and scarce reason) to persuade the developing countries.
There is nothing cynical about it (except your judgment of it). She admits to following opinion polls on important issues like this. In the days after Fukushima, the opinion polls regarding nuclear power moved from 50:50 to a majority in favor of ending nuclear power.
Same thing with gay marriage: As soon as she saw support for it growing far enough that it could threaten her party's position in the federal elections, she changed her stance from "never" to "let the representatives decide", leading to a nonpartisan bill passing the parliament with overwhelming majority.
Same thing with "Wir schaffen das": Her actions regarding the 2015 refugee influx were (at least partially) motivated by stronger-than-expected support for refugee-friendly policies in the population.
Say what you want about Merkel, but there is an argument to be made that by closely monitoring opinion polls, her government is more democratic than otherwise. (There are obvious flaws in this argument, which is why I don't endorse it.)
I've always thought her motivation in 2015 was because she didn't want to be seen in history as a monster, I didn't know about the poll numbers. But what if the majority said "Refugees stay out!"? If I were a political leader, I would still let them in and try to appeal to my population about being humane, if I just looked at the poll numbers and they say "close the borders" and I just followed that, I would not be able to sleep at night.
I've read an article that asked what she has accomplished for the nation, and the author concluded her only mission is political survival.
My cynical side says that's why you're not a political leader.
Actually they just closed the very last mine - http://time.com/longform/germany-coal-mine/
>Coal was once the lifeblood of Germany’s economy, providing energy, jobs and a way of life for hundreds of thousands of people. But on Dec. 21, that era — which began during the industrial revolution and peaked in the 1950s — officially comes to an end, as the country’s last black coal mine is sealed up for good.
Unfortunately lignite (brown coal) mining continues.
"In 2015, 35 percent of gas imports came from Russia, 34 percent from Norway and 29 percent from the Netherlands."
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-dependen...
The Netherlands imports are in rapid decline. So shares from Norway and Russia will be increasing.
> In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, there were heavy protests in Germany that made the country shut down all its nuclear power plants permanently
In 2000 Germany agreed to phase out nuclear power over ~20 years. A few months before the tsunami at Fukushima, Merkel's government extended these deadlines by ~10 years, but did not cancel phase-out. The public opinion due to the events at Fukushima caused the government to move things back to a similar timeline to the original phase out. However a number of plants were shut immediately.
There's a good timeline here if you're curious to learn more:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/very-brief-timeli...
Edit: The bit in the timeline where is says Merkel cancelled the phase out is misleading. Here's a better article if you want to understand what happened in 2010:
"Merkel stated numbers for the planned extension of the lifespan of nuclear plants in Germany. "Technically, 10 to 15 years are reasonable," she said in an interview with public television station ARD. Instead of phasing out all nuclear plants by 2022 as established in current law, the plants would remain online at least until 2032 and possibly until 2037."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/slowing-the-phas...
We don't have much else in terms of natural resources. So while coal absolutely must be phased out, it's surely not "absurd" that Germany historically relied on coal.