A dispute over what is supposed to be its most important climate policy is adding to the woes of Germany’s governing coalition. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and their center-left coalition partner SPD are split over the basic design of the planned Climate Action Law, due this year. The spat threatens to stall progress on the recommendations from Germany’s coal exit commission and further climate action in the transport and buildings sector. —Clean Energy Wire, 19 February 2019
Ukraine is sure that Russia actively supports the recent protests in EU countries against global warming, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told a group of Brussels journalists on Monday (18 February). Klimkin, in Brussels, as EU foreign ministers meet to discuss several hotbeds of tension, including Ukraine, was asked if he agreed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who mentioned the protests after talking about hybrid warfare from Russia. —EurActiv, 18 February 2019
Australian households will pay nearly $2 billion for rooftop solar installation subsidies this year, costing every home nearly $200 and threatening to derail Scott Morrison’s pledge to cut power bills. —The Australian, 19 February 2019
Holland’s national statistics agency said the average household energy bill would go up by €334 this year, more than double the earlier government estimate. The cabinet has admitted it used old figures when calculating the impact of energy tax hikes and underestimated the impact on families. —Dutch News, 19 February 2019
Decades after French philosophers stopped fretting over existence, the thinking classes have embraced a new fad: the end of the world. Cited by converts from President Macron to pop singers and yellow-vest protesters, the doctrine of imminent apocalypse goes under the unlikely franglais name la collapsologie. The French president, who sees climate disaster as his biggest challenge, stirred yellow-vest anger in November when he lectured them that “the end of the world” was just as important as “the end of the month”, which they worry about. —The Times, 14 February 2019
