This week we speak with Rebekka Popp. She is a policy advisor at E3G. We go into detail about the German coal phase-out, COP 26 and why being a policy advisor makes a difference. The reason I wanted to talk to Rebekka is because of her publications on the German transition and the EU’s Green Deal. Other countries look towards Germany to justify their transition or even non-transition. Understanding Germany helps to understand broader goals and the difficulty of creating a just transition, which the EU’s Green Deal attempts to do.
In our conversation, Rebekka and I spend time on Germany’s slow and gradual phase-out of coal-fired powerplants. She emphasises the current plans are not in line with EU goals and are not ambitious enough due to the fast pace policy reforms that make 2030 the new 2050.
We delve into the EU’s Green Deal and how there is now a fostering of international competition between countries to be leaders in clean energy solutions. What stands out to me in our conversation is the interlinkages and complexity that Rebeka explains around Germany’s slow phase-out of coal, due to a lack of political leadership. She describes how this issue and the impact of COVID 19 is impacting COP26 and the efforts to induce a global green economic re-start.
Dr. Michael LaBelle is an associate professor at Central European University in the Department of Environmental Sciences. He produces the My Energy 2050 podcast to change how we communicate and improve the energy transition.