Dhe energy transition is a generational task. After all, the EU and its member states have set themselves no less than turning their entire way of doing business upside down. According to the European Green Deal, the entire economic area should be climate-neutral by 2050. For this to happen, the way Europeans produce, how they consume, build, live and move around has to change.
Nobody knows whether this changeover can work. What is clear, however, is that enormous efforts are required on the way there. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to mobilize a trillion or 1,000 billion euros at EU level by 2030 alone.
The corresponding costs for the entire global economy are staggering. The World Resources Institute, a US think tank, calculates that between 2030 and 2050, 5 trillion US dollars will have to be invested worldwide every year. If one also includes the linear ramp-up from 2022, this would correspond to a total of 125 trillion US dollars by 2050. Written out, this is a number with twelve zeros: 125,000,000,000,000.
Germany is already spending billions on the energy transition. In the economy, however, there are considerable doubts as to whether the country is on the right track with this mammoth project. This is also confirmed by a current survey by the German Chamber of Foreign Trade among German companies that are represented in countries around the world. The unpublished results are available to WELT.
“The failure of the energy transition is not an option”
Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck described the planned area targets for wind turbines as “milestones” for a faster expansion of renewable energies. “The expansion must be accelerated,” said the Green politician.
The 2860 companies that are dealing with the planned climate protection measures at home in Germany as well as at locations abroad were asked how convinced they are of the energy transition plans in Germany and their host countries. The federal government is not doing well. Just over a quarter of the companies believe that the federal government is pursuing a convincing strategy for the energy transition.
In other countries it is different. Companies that are active in the Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden and Finland and are also following the climate legislation there attest to very convincing plans for the energy transition in these EU countries. More than two thirds of those questioned there are convinced of the local energy transition plans. The two South American states of Uruguay and Chile also achieved approval ratings of more than 70 percent.
Committed targets, hardly any concrete measures
The managers in the companies are not alone with their critical findings. The German foreign trade promotion agency, Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI), has also examined whether Germany and other countries can back up their climate promises with concrete plans and convincingly present how they intend to achieve their climate goals. The sobering finding of the company, which is subordinate to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate: “Committed targets such as ‘neutrality of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050’ are in many cases only a few concrete measures to achieve them.” This is what it says in a large climate protection atlas for 34 Countries created by the economic promoters.
Most recently, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) warned of a large gap between the goals of the energy transition and the actual efforts. “Immense efforts are needed to close the gap between the announced goals and the current status,” the scientists wrote in a recent analysis. More speed in climate protection and in energy policy are needed.
The gap between aspiration and reality is particularly large when it comes to the production and use of green hydrogen from renewable energies, the expansion of the infrastructure for electric cars and renewable heat.
In the companies, the deficits are obviously seen in a similar way. The managers surveyed by the foreign trade chambers in Germany not only miss investments in the use of green hydrogen, which is obtained from water with the help of solar or wind power and can replace natural gas and fossil fuels to a limited extent. They complain that there is hardly any public discussion about the use of hydrogen.
In other countries, the assessment of local managers is different. The results of the survey paint a picture of a global hydrogen elite: a club of economies that rely on the production of hydrogen from renewable energies to do good business, countries that rely on using hydrogen for the energy transition and those who want to earn money from the expansion of the global hydrogen infrastructure.
This applies, for example, to Great Britain, where there is widespread public discussion about converting existing gas boilers in private households so that they can also be used with hydrogen produced in a climate-neutral manner in the future. Other countries preparing to become large consumers of green hydrogen would also widely discuss the new technology and its application. Japan belongs to this group, as does South Korea.
The group of countries that see themselves as producers for the global hydrogen economy and where the future role of hydrogen in the economy is widely discussed includes Saudi Arabia, Chile, Australia and Norway.
The hydrogen economy is not a sure-fire success
None of the EU countries taking part in the survey can be found in this hydrogen elite club. The international managers attest Germany and Europe only mediocre when it comes to this future technology. This also applies to North Africa and the Middle East, of all places – regions that Europe is relying on for the future supply of green hydrogen.
Hydrogen should become an important component of the energy transition in the EU and in Germany and will play a fundamental role in many areas in the future, especially where fossil fuels cannot be replaced by electricity in the foreseeable future. This applies, for example, to aviation, but also to steel production and other industrial processes. A recently published study sees great potential for the emergence of a hydrogen economy in eastern Germany and other regions undergoing structural change. However, the hydrogen economy is not a sure-fire success.
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