The move has been described as “painful but necessary” by the government’s environmental finance minister, Robert Hambeck. It has the support of the leading Greens in the coalition government, who argue it is necessary as a short-term crisis management tool. Given final approval by the upper house of parliament on Friday, it was approved along with a package of measures to boost the expansion of renewable energy sources – in part by classifying them as a matter of public safety – including setting a minimum percentage each federal state must allows wind farms. But environmental activists argue that a potential return to using such highly polluting energy is too much of a compromise and that Germany risks missing even its most basic climate goals. Before the conflict in Ukraine, Germany planned to phase out coal by 2030, as it is much more carbon intensive than natural gas. But when supplies of natural gas from Russia – on which Germany is heavily dependent – began to dwindle after Russia cut the flow, moves were made to restart coal-fired power plants that had been mothballed. The measures are intended to help wean Germany off Russian gas, making it less open to blackmail, and to maintain energy supplies ahead of winter by using coal to generate electricity instead of natural gas, which should be saved for a wide range of industrial processes. Industry bosses welcomed the move on Friday. In a statement, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) called the decision “better late than never”. He said: “Politics and economics urgently need to use the summer months to conserve natural gas, to ensure storage facilities are full ahead of the coming heating season. Otherwise, we face a severe shortage of natural gas with a sharp decline in industrial production. In this tense situation, what counts is every day and every cubic meter of gas we can save.” Natural gas storage facilities were only about one-third full when war broke out. By Friday they had been gradually filled to about 63% capacity, amid austerity measures and efforts to source supplies from elsewhere. But they are still a long way from the 90% target to be reached by November 1, which experts say should see Germany through the winter. Already households and industry have been asked to save as much energy as possible. Hambeck has talked about reducing the length of his showers and is encouraging Germans to do the same. Elsewhere, councils have introduced measures to reduce street lighting, to lower the temperature of swimming pools, while some housing associations have even started rationing hot water supplies to their tenants. Gas bills have already doubled and could quadruple over the winter. “We’re talking about increases equivalent to a month’s income for some families,” Haback warned. At the beginning of the war, the Germans were asked to reduce their use of natural gas to punish Vladimir Putin. Now the message has changed to cutting off natural gas to ensure warmth in winter. Natural gas supplies from Russia via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that runs from the Baltic Sea to Germany have fallen to around 40% of usual levels. On Monday, an annual maintenance project on the pipeline, which is expected to shut it down for about 10 days, is seen as a critical moment. There are widespread fears, supported by Habeck and other government officials, that Russia could use the opportunity to shut down the pipeline entirely under the pretense of component failure. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am Habeck told parliament on Thursday that Germany is a hostage to circumstances, but also blamed the energy policies of Angela Merkel’s former government. “If you’re posing in front of melting icebergs and you make the right decision to turn your back [nuclear] energy, but forget that you have to build an infrastructure to make it work, if you make climate policy decisions but don’t back them up with measures, then it’s like leaving Germany standing in the rain,” he said. Klaus Ernst, chairman of the parliament’s climate protection and energy committee, said the decision to rekindle coal-fired plants amounted to “destroying climate policy.” Ernst, a member of the far-left League party, said that by imposing sanctions on Russia that it now seeks revenge for, Germany had put itself in a position “to take measures that hit our country harder than the country we intended to be hit with sanctions.” He said that if gas supplies from Russia were to stop, Germany would face its worst economic crisis since the second world war. Richard Lange, the leader of the Greens, said the coal plant decision made her “stomach ache” but that in the short term it was vital to ensure energy security in the coming months. “Therefore it is right to allow coal plants to be used again, but at the same time of course we need to gut it to ensure we can meet our target to phase out coal by 2030.”
