Merkel opens Baltic’s biggest wind park

Bloomberg

Angela Merkel will leave Brexit worries by the shoreline as she cuts the opening ribbon on a giant wind farm out in the Baltic Sea, a move that will do little to gloss over her tarnished reputation as Germany’s climate chancellor.
The Arkona wind park, a joint venture of utility EON SE and Norway’s oil and gas giant Equinor ASA, is in her constituency. Built in just three months off the coast of Ruegen island, the 60-turbine site can generate enough power for 400,000 homes and is the largest wind farm in the Baltic. It’s a home turf celebration for Merkel, who usually can’t find the time to open new green projects.
The German leader last year turned down invitations to open Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA’s turbine factory in Cuxhaven on the North Sea and Iberdrola SA’s Wikinger Baltic offshore park, also in her backyard. Yet climate woes are stacking up in Merkel’s last two years as chancellor.
Cutting the ribbon for the Arkona park “underlines just how important it is for us to expand renewable energy,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast. Her government is doubling down on cutting emissions after resolving this year to exit coal power, she said. “It’s clear we’re facing enormous efforts ahead.”
Emissions have barely dropped since Merkel took office in 2005, even with clean power now generating about 40 percent of electricity. Subsidies paid by power consumers to support wind, solar and biomass have made the nation’s electricity bills the highest in the EU-28 after Denmark. Germany is the bloc’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter.
As temperatures soared last summer to a national record, polls showed climate returned to voters’ biggest worries. The Rhine, Europe’s busiest river artery, sank to near-record lows, disrupting oil and coal transport. Withered corn and wheat fields forced Germany to import grains for the first time in 24 years.
That’s all while Germany let its climate goals slip and Merkel’s government blo-cks ambitious transport emission cuts at European level, moves that have sco-tched her claims to being the “climate chancellor,” according to Claudia Kemfert who follows energy policy at the DIW research institute in Berlin.