As Greens double down on their politically suicidal climate agenda, the German political establishment begins to crack

The only hope for political victory against the enormously powerful governments of Western countries is a divided elite.

Yesterday, I described how the German political and media establishment are closing ranks against the vaccine-injured. While the sheer pervasiveness of negative reactions to the jabs have made it impossible to keep stories of adverse events out of the press, the system has fielded a coordinated response to protect itself and silence its critics. I am pessimistic that it can be overcome.

But, there has been a lot of pessimism on the plague chronicle lately, so I want to look now at a more hopeful case, which suggests what real victory over the elite political juggernaut might look like. It involves proposed changes to the Building Energy Act, or the Gebäudeenergiegesetz (GEG), championed by our Green Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck. If approved by the Bundestag, the changes will force Germans to abandon home heating systems based on fossil fuels in favour of more environmentally-friendly alternatives, particularly heat pumps. Because the new law will require ruinous renovations in many older buildings, it represents a direct assault on the wealth of the aging German middle class, who are core supporters of the major parties. A more politically suicidal law is hardly imaginable. The outcry has already forced Habeck first to sacrifice his powerful state secretary Patrick Graichen, and then to totally rewrite the GEG in an attempt to mollify critics. The changes are complicated, but the upshot is that many of the worst ordinances will not take effect for some years.

Few are satisfied. A recent survey shows that 74% of Germans believe “there are too many open questions” and that the legislation should be substantially delayed if not shelved. Majorities in all parties are opposed; even 51% of Green voters don’t want the GEG to pass right now. A substantial part of the establishment media has accordingly become openly critical of the Greens, which is very rare and remarkable for mainstream political discourse here. Der Spiegel ran an important investigative piece on the “eco-network” which now “dominates German climate policy,” recycling many points first raised in the climate-critical alternative blogosphere. And just yesterday, state media talkshow host Markus Lanz subjected Habeck to an extended grilling about the GEG and its many controversies, suggesting at one point that his proposals were “too radical.”

Nor is the media Habeck’s only problem. Thomas Heilmann, a Bundestag representative for the CDU, filed suit with the federal constitutional court in Karlsruhe to delay voting on the law, which was originally scheduled for today. He argued that the Bundestag hadn’t been given enough time to review the heavily revised legislation. In a surprise decision issued Wednesday, the court agreed, blocking any vote before the summer holiday.

The whole process will now be kicked back to September, which is very bad for Habeck and the Scholz government. State elections are scheduled for 8 October in Bavaria and Hessen, and they wanted the hated GEG out of the press and out of voters’ minds well before then, to minimise political damage as much as possible. If this bitter debate hasn’t been forgotten in advance of these elections, voters will punish the state-level candidates of the coalition parties accordingly.

What we’re seeing – in enormous contrast to pandemic restrictions and the mass vaccination initiative – is a serious fracturing of the establishment. The reasons lie near at hand: Judges and journalists are also members of the middle class; they, too, have no small part of their wealth in houses and apartments. This is the precondition for any kind of political victory, at least with things as they are now. We need true political opposition from within the elite; when they act in unison, they’re much too powerful to overcome.

It’s an important question, why the Scholz government in general, and Habeck in particular, can’t seem to moderate their agenda, and have chosen instead to fire a cruise missile like the GEG directly at a central pillar of their political support. The answer lies partly with the pandemic, which has encouraged many politicians and bureaucrats to adopt a new, maximalist view of their powers and what is politically feasible. Another part of the explanation is to be sought in the complex network of lobbyists and NGOs which are responsible for dictating climate policy in Germany and many other places. Things like the proposed revisions to the GEG are developed not by experienced politicians, but by faceless technocrats, activists and philanthropists in back rooms. These people are very good at getting politicians to dance to their tune, but neither they nor the parties they have coopted appear to have thought about how these ideas would play to their constituents, or indeed about the very nature of political support for climate change initiatives. Green voters want to save the planet via consumer choice and minor lifestyle adjustments. They don’t actually want to be impoverished.

And speaking of poverty: There is a tight link between the prosperity of the West on the one hand, and the escalating insanity of Western politics on the other hand. Outside the wealthy developed world, very few people care about the fineries of nonbinary gender expression, carbon emissions, Covid vaccine uptake or the colonial sins of their forefathers. Climate change, insofar as it threatens this prosperity, is the one agenda item that appears poised to eliminate its own preconditions. If the climateers get too far, they may well take the whole ship down with them.