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Angela Merkel, the second worse chancellor in German history, has surrendered to Trump.

"Germany's G20 presidency dramatically weakened a climate action plan gutting it of ambitious language and defining gas, and potentially even some coal power, as clean technologies, in an attempt to appeal to US president Donald Trump.

The action plan was intended to be agreed at next week's Hamburg G20 summit. Climate Home has seen two versions, drafted in March and May of this year. The latter shows the degree to which the German presidency has bent to the will of the Trump White House.

Several elements that have been removed in the May draft are:

  • A 2025 deadline for the end of fossil fuel subsidies
  • References to the risk of stranded assets
  • A call for the alignment of public expenditure and infrastructure planning with the goals of the Paris Agreement
  • A push for carbon pricing
  • A commitment to publish mid-century decarbonisation blueprints by next year
  • A pledge to develop a profound climate plan for multilateral development banks
  • Seven references to the UN's 2018 review of nationally-determined contributions
  • 11 references to the 2050 mid-century pathway for net zero emission
  • 16 mentions of infrastructure decarbonisation

The US massively weakened the language in the energy part of the action plan, one source with knowledge of the negotiations said.  It pushed for references to so-called clean fossil fuels and made it less explicit that the energy transition has to be built on energy efficiency and renewables.

It also provided cover to some other G20 members such as the Saudis and Russia to weaken some climate sections of the document, including the pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies."

http://www.climatechangenews.c...-plan-appease-trump/

TRUTH -- THE NEW HATE SPEECH!

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I think Deutschland had already surrendered before Trump:

Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables

Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson?

At one point this month renewable energy sources briefly supplied close to 90 percent of the power on Germany’s electric grid. But that doesn’t mean the world’s fourth-largest economy is close to being run on zero-carbon electricity. In fact, Germany is giving the rest of the world a lesson in just how much can go wrong when you try to reduce carbon emissions solely by installing lots of wind and solar.

After years of declines, Germany’s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. That’s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal.

https://www.technologyreview.c...imits-of-renewables/

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