G7 Show Provides for Bad Climate
“Neither the world climate, nor peace in Europe, nor the hanseatic town advanced the G7 meeting. Minister for Economic Affairs Gabriel once again overestimated himself: Not one of the G7 member states was interested in the RWE wind power project in the German Sea, the helicopter trip of the vice chancellor was a lead balloon. Instead, the energy issue is further positioned against Russia at the expense of a peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis” declares Eva Bulling-Schröter, spokesperson for Energy and Climate Policy of DIE LINKE group in conclusion of the meeting of the G7 energy ministers in Hamburg. Bulling-Schröter further:
“To exclude Russia from the club of leading industrial nations was a wrong signal. Instead of relaxation and dialogue it is banked on exclusion, lack of communication, and sanctions – in the tried and tested Cold War way. To the population of Germany and Europe the image of Russia using energy as a weapon is conveyed. And yet, not even in the prime times of bloc confrontation Moscow has pulled the plug. The hanseatic town Hamburg for two days was an undemocratice security zone; a bitter foretaste of what impends at the G7 summit in Bavaria in June.
Despite all announcements to reach a strong climate agreement at the UN climate summit, the G7 energy policy demonstrates that the journey heads for the wrong direction. The G7 declaration of Rome in 2014 is proof of the fact that the energy turn-around is not seriously introduced. Instead of genuinely stop global warming the leading industrial nations further bank on nuclear energy, carbon, fracking, and CCS techniques. The United States use the external tensions with Russia to open up new markets in Europe for their own fracking gas and to pursue geopolitics because liquid gas (LNG) from the US and the Middle East are in direct competition to gas from Russia.”