Steffen Hentrich

Proper application and Agriculture 4.0 will make it possible to balance the need to economically protect crops, on the one hand, while taking into account the needs of protecting health and the environment, on the other. This can be achieved without banning glyphosate.

Energy transformation, Germany’s plan to transform the energy industry into a greenhouse gas-neutral energy supply, is no longer solely a federal government project. Local authorities are beginning to push ahead with energy transition focused on decentralized municipal energy concepts.

The key to solving the ecological problems of transport lies in a policy that allows for technological innovation in a wide range of drive technologies and air-cleaning measures. Central planning and ideologically motivated activism, which reduce our prosperity, undermine technological know-how and threaten jobs, are clearly out of place.

In a way, digitization is old hat. E-mails turned 45 on September 30, 2016. In 1997, 4.1m Germans were online; today the figure is 58m. Growing up in today\'s world, it is impossible to imagine being without a smartphone. But not having a landline phone or not owning a car? No problem.

Just in time for the upcoming climate conference in Marrakech, Germany’s council of economic experts, the Sachverständigenrat, is appealing to the government to change tactic towards a global climate policy. Germany’s energy transition is beyond reform.

Free market institutions and individual liberty promote economic development and human resilience to a changing climate. So far, coercive and centrally planned regulation induced by climate change alarmism delivered a disappointing outcome.

European politicians try to sell their ambitious climate goals and the proposed regulations to their citizens as a nice fairy tale: Policy driven investments in green technologies that cut emissions will not only save the world but also boost the economy, create jobs and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness.

Extremely disappointing is the performance of the FDP (3.4%,-7.6), even accounting for their landslide loss in the last years Bundestag election.

Reasonable climate policy means more benefits than costs. Therefore we need to know how expensive a warmer climate is before we cheer strict climate policy instruments. But that number is nowhere to be seen in the last WGIII-report. We are supposed to believe that two degree Celsius more would ruin the world.

What Mr. Gabriel’s green growth strategy will yield is not economic growth, but growth of state power with more and more intrusion in our civil liberties.