Germany is famously abhorrent of change. "We've always done it this way" isn't used ironically.
[1] https://www.base.bund.de/en/nuclear-safety/nuclear-phase-out...
The way I understand it, Germany had a horrid mix of anti-nuclear eco-activists, local coal lobbyists and Gazprom's natural gas lobbyists. The politicians not included in any of the above were too toothless, and couldn't fight through this bullshit and secure good outcomes regardless.
Some of those critics focus on nuclear (Like AfD: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/populist-afd-sand-gears...) and some of those pretend to be angry about the slowness of Germanys transition but it doesn't really add up to anyone who pays attention to the local facts. It's just a meme to get people angry at the left and/or environmentalists, while the right openly and continually sabotage progress.
Greenpeace did great work on the peace front, but wrecked 50 years of carbon progress on the nuclear power front.
The "left" (by your definition) also opposes fossil fuels but we're nowhere near eliminating those. Why haven't they succeeded?
Surely mere "opposition" isn't enough.
Leaving nuclear in place would be good, going heavily into renewables would also be good, but doing neither would be idiotic, and somehow that's what they did.
Greens were in a coalition with the Social Democrats led by Chancellor Schroeder; Schroeder agreed to the Greens’ demands for nuclear exit and negotiated a board role at Gazprom for himself after his political career.
Merkel initially wanted to reverse or freeze the exit timeline but bowed to public opinion to continue it once the tsunami hit Japan.
I mean not always, they put feed in tarifs for solar in law at the end of the 90s. This led to a huge boom in solar production and it made the Germans very big in solar panel production. Unfortunately, like all other countries they were eventually outproduced by china.
This model has been copied in a lot of places afterwards and only when a mature market for solar exists does it stop working (it becomes a subsidy for people that produce paid for by people that don't).
When the conservatives regained power, they vowed to cancel and stop the exit timeline, but then came Fukushima and an irrational media panic - and Merkel did what she does best.
Poland is building nuclear power now though, after decades of burning epic amounts of coal (~85% of their electricity output).
This is most likely coz it provides a route to creating a nuclear weapon in a hurry "just in case". It isnt cost effective for them for any other purpose.
https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/poland/
They keep putting their nuclear switch on date backwards (2040 now I think?) but renewables have been taking big chunks out of the problem and will continue to do so.
You mean f_ck up safety and security of whole Old continent for decades to come, for some ego polishing, personal weaknesses or similar noble reasons?
She still admits no failures nor missteps during her reign in many topics where she clearly failed badly, despite journalists asking very direct questions about this. I wonder when will German population realize how much long term damage she has done, if ever.
The German antinuclear movement started as a local aspect of the 68s civil rights and environmental movements. Then, when Chernobyl hit, West Germany enacted restrictions in daily life to cope with the risk of radioactive fallout and contamination. The daily experience of many Germans was probably not too dissimilar from the Covid time. (The restrictions were less severe but the mood was similarly apocalyptic)
This experience made a nuclear-free Germany an absolute core part of the progressive movement here. It's part of the founding story of the Greens.
Other flashpoints were plans for "eternal storage" facilities for nuclear waste. The conflict around the Gorleben facility was going on between government and local population for several decades and had given rise to entire protest communities.
It's a partisan topic like maybe abortion in the US.
The only aspect of Merkel's decision that was surprising was that she did it. She seemingly switched political sides and enacted several parts of the progressive agenda (also gay marriage and "wir schaffen das" - the famously liberal stance on refugees) - as head of the conservative party. Her party and voting base were not happy with that...
It's almost as if the outrage was astroturfed into existence by the nuclear lobby using similar tactics to the oil lobby.
You never hear someone complain about Germany's nuclear exit and then pivot into "but at least they're doing well with renewables and they should do better and go faster on EVs and electrification of heat" which would make sense for someone who had a strange affection for nuclear tech, particularly those last two which work great with nuclear.
What you do see is people absolutely seething about leftists and environmentalists and renewables who only have one just barely socially acceptable outlet to attack Germany on.
But they attack them not because their decarbonisation is slow but because they were clear leaders in the tech that threatens fossil fuels around the globe.
Making it seem like a failure is a good way to slow down that transition in other countries too.
Which would be weird if they weren't misrepresenting their concerns. Or at least trying to. It's all very transparent.
Former East German political agents still working for Russia.
Not many whales around here unfortunately, but I'm amazed what kind of extinction-level dangers they apparently pose for birds, forests and generally wildlife.
And then there is the lasting psychological damage caused by the sounds and moving shadows of the rotor blades...