If EU emissions targets for the car industry were applied to top German politicians’ official vehicles, the fleet would fail, according to a climate body’s new study. DUH said it was “emblematic” of German carmakers.
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The chancellor and deputy chancellor — as well as the ministers for finance, the interior, defense and health — were all excluded from the study. The reason for this is that these vehicles are all armored, meaning that they are sure to be much heavier than standard models and therefore less energy efficient.
I thought this would be the reason to the headline, but nope. By now are usable electric cars for longer distances available, even from German companys: VW ID.7, BMW I7, I5, I4, Mercedes EQS and EQE. And to be honest, I don’t think many of them would even need to charge at all, Germanys Bundesländer aren’t that big (mostly).
From the previous “Ampel” government all ministers except one took their Limousines from the inauguration in 2021 to the parliament, which was just a few kilometers. The minister for agriculture and member of the green party, Cem Özdemir took the bike.
As he later pushed shitty environmentally unfriendly policy, that turned out to be just a stunt, but the other ministers of the green party could have done the same. Or they could have agreed that the ministers are distributed among three mini-busses or so, instead of everyone in their own limousine. Just some practical gesture showing that they pretend to care and don’t except themselves from the calls made to the public to lower their emissions.
To be fair, they all of the Green ministers had full electric cars. Besides Habeck who was not allowed due to no armored EV being available.
They basically calculate the emissions targets wrong, as they include the emissions from producing the electricity for EVs. EU regulation however calls those zero, as the emissions are part of the electricity sector targets.
Also a good number use EVs. I believe the Greens are pretty much fully EV by now or did not choose to have a car at all, which obviously only really works in city states.
How does that compare to other countries’ politicians?
TBF other country’s politicians* don’t tend to go around pushing the interests of the car industry quite so much
*except America, obvs
I get your point, but in many countries - outside the EU, US and other Western democracies - politicians push their own and their industries’ interests much harsher, in fact, they often do nothing else. In many countries of the world, if you publish an article like that, you risked to disappear or fall out of the window or something, which is why many such ‘critical’ issues never make news.