Let's go to a German utopia view in life....the climate is under threat and a terrible 'woe' will fall upon the lan, unless you do something drastic to curb greenhouse gas emissions. You, the regular German, without a lot of science in school, and maybe only a 'token' of science in college....have gone to the idea of just trusting politicians who know what they are talking about.
Somewhere in the mix....you (the regular consumer and non-scientist) wake up and are told that between 1990 and 2017....greenhouse gas emissions in Germany increased.
By defined goals (given to you by scientists and politicians), there's a goal of cutting all of this by 98 million tons....by 2030. That's a 40-percent cut. You get this warm feeling that by doing all of this, you will be saving Germany, and the Earth. You go and sip some fine brewed beer and have a good feeling in your heart.
Things should be fine now.
But then it starts to occur you (via hints from the government folks), you need to suffer in order to cut the 40-percent. You have to suffer as a consumer, as a traveler, a worker, and so on. You (the state bureaucrat) have to suffer via budget planning because you can't get the same amount of money as you did in the past decade.
The cost of this program over 11 years? It's around 250 billion Euro (more or less). To be honest, you can figure it'll escalate year by year.....so it might get up to 400 billion Euro.
They have to build more onto the rail transport network, and convince people to actually use it.....whether they like the idea or not.
They have to urge people to use bicycles more....whether they like the idea or not.
They have to expand out the network of charging stations....in towns, cities, and along the massive autobahn structure of the country.
They have hike the gas/diesel taxes to an extent to pay for much of this, and force people to go with that climate goal measures.
They have to put special fees into new car sales....to help motivate you to avoid gas/diesel cars.
Who is going to pay 60,000 Euro for e-cars? Will the typical working-class German be able to afford them? No. In fact, if you go into a town of 10,000 German residents....with the current cost level of e-cars....at best, maybe 10-percent might be able to really afford these cars. Twenty years into the future? No one can show any statistical evidence that e-car trend will get any better. Could you get a regular new VW e-car down to 18,000 Euro? Even if you did....would these people buy it?
This 250 billion Euro amount being discussed for the government to carry it the plan.....does the money exist today? No. Not unless you hike taxes in a major way, and cut budgets on other programs.
Could the plan and path lead some Germans to exit the country? No one brings this issue up, but you have to wonder, for those being heavily taxed to score big on tax revenue....why would you stay or allow your money to be used to this extent?
If at any point of this pathway to the greenhouse gas emissions utopia.....people figure out it was fraudulent in nature and they suffered for no reason? It's best not to suggest that scenario, because it'd be the end of political stability for the current parties in power.
A chaotic 11-year path ahead? Oh yes, so hang on.
No comments:
Post a Comment