Germany’s Tenuous Coalition Government Shows Strain

Weaning Germany off Russian gas drained 300 billion euros, about $320 billion, from state coffers last year. Today, Germany has simply swapped its energy dependency from Russia to countries like Norway, the United States or Qatar.

Fear of being temporarily disadvantaged has taken over a more important long-term reality, said Nina Scheer, the spokeswoman for climate and energy politics for the Social Democrats in Parliament.

“This should be a bill about enabling people, not about restrictions,” she said. As climate policies are enacted, fossil fuel prices will rise, she said — and households will face the costs: “It’s a false security to believe that if you keep everything the way it is, that it will be safe. We learned last year what that means.”

The German heating bill would actually only do what other European countries have already done. From Scandinavia to France to Italy, all have laws promoting low-carbon heating systems. Even in Poland, which has clung to coal, installations of heat pumps soared 120 percent last year.