Germany's Runaway Power, Pollution Bills Haunt Merkel's New Term
- Green tariffs keep increasing but emissions aren’t falling
- German ‘Energy Shift’ is 97% financed via consumer power bills
The Coming Storm of Climate Change
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Voter support for Angela Merkel’s long-standing pledge for climate protection risks being undermined by stubbornly high pollution levels and power prices.
Average retail power costs are set to climb 111 percent since 2000, when guaranteed subsidies for wind, solar and biomass power first started being added to consumers’ bills, forecasts from the BDEW utilities federation showed last week. Germany may for the first time move up a notch to share with Denmark the highest household energy bills in the EU.