German Minister admits ruinous home heating ordinances were merely a “test” to determine “how far society is prepared to go in terms of climate protection”
We are governed by crazy lunatics, Part 2436502345.
The Greens really are every inch as crazy as they seem to be.
Climate policies have long been a source of annoyance and exasperation, but they really began to terrify me for the first time with last year’s proposed changes to the Gebäudeenergiegesetz, or the Building Energy Act (GEG). The technocratic wing of the Greens, under Economics Minister Robert Habeck, proposed to mandate that all new heating systems installed after 2024 in Germany use no less than 65% renewable energy. In its original form, the law amounted to a de facto mandate to install heat pumps, and it would’ve entailed catastrophic renovation costs for the owners of many older buildings. The law proved so controversial that even some of the establishment press broke ranks to criticise it; in the end, Habeck had to sacrifice his powerful state secretary Patrick Graichen, and the legislation passed in modified but still pretty terrible form, laden with a wealth of complex subsidies and exceptions.
Yesterday, at a town hall event, somebody asked Habeck about the GEG, and he responded by saying that the first and most ruinous draft of the law was a test, to see how much the people would put up with:
Many of you will remember that we went as far as we could go in the buildings sector – at least that’s what I would say for myself – without risking the complete collapse of climate policies. The debate about the Building Energy Act, that is how we will heat in the future, was honestly a test of how far society is prepared to go in terms of climate protection when it becomes a reality…
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