Industry is Being Sacrificed to Net Zero Ideology, Says Siemens Energy Boss
Europe is sacrificing industry to Net Zero ideology, the Chairman of Siemens Energy has warned, with strict emission targets crippling manufacturing in Germany. The Telegraph has more.
Joe Kaeser said strict zero-emission targets had crippled manufacturing and heavy industry in Germany and beyond. He called on the German Government to work on a more “economically feasible plan” for the country to decarbonise.
“The critics have a point when they say you risk your economic power [and] society’s wellbeing by being ideological about Net Zero,” he said.
His comments will raise questions about Britain’s approach to Net Zero, which official forecasts show will add hundreds of billions of pounds to government spending over the next few decades.
As well as questions about cost, the UK and Europe face increasing pressure from the US to dial back plans which Trump administration officials claim are making countries “subservient” to Beijing.
Sir Keir Starmer will fly to China this week in the first visit by a British Prime Minister since 2018, with energy likely to be among the topics discussed.
Kaeser, who previously ran German industrial giant Siemens before becoming Chairman of its energy division, warned that European companies were becoming uncompetitive because of green energy policies.
He criticised the Government in Berlin for forcing zero emission targets on carmakers and demanding that businesses prove the products they sell have no connection to deforestation.
The German businessman also criticised officials for sacrificing reliable, cheap energy by ditching fossil fuels.
Kaeser said: “They became ideologists on renewables. That’s a bad idea. If you are an industrial country and cannot provide a sustainable, affordable and reliable source of energy, you have a problem.”
Germany’s share of global emissions is currently less than 2% – much lower than other industrialised countries including Brazil and India – and Kaeser said even halving this figure would make little difference to the global picture.
By comparison, China now accounts for a third of global carbon emissions while the UK’s share is less than 1%.
“Why would you risk your industrial competitiveness by maybe being a rounding error in the global discussion?” Kaeser said.
Germany has a goal of hitting zero carbon emissions by 2045, a more aggressive target than Britain’s legally enshrined 2050 deadline.
Kaeser, who is also the Chairman of Daimler trucks, attacked the EU’s approach of reaching Net Zero by regulation. He said Brussels spent too much time drawing up rules for manufacturers without considering how they could kill demand.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Britain’s energy industry faces collapse thanks to Labour’s “chaotic and needless” rundown of the oil and gas sector, one of its biggest union backers has warned. Louise Gilmour, Scotland Secretary of the GMB union, says “delusional” Net Zero policies championed by Ed Miliband are causing “arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history”, the Telegraph reports.
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More stating the bleedin’ obvious.
We laughed at the idea that Windmills could be a credible source of Electricity for modern industrial country, in 1974.
It was in a workshop, where three PhDs were learning how to keep sixteen Physics undergraduates in order, and we were learning the importance of running through a few figures before embarking on a project.
Yes, it was in 1974!
“Industry is Being Sacrificed to Net Zero Ideology.” Yes, that’s the whole bleedin’ point of Net Zero ideology.
Chairman of Siemens yet still believes CO2 is causing global problems. He’s not very bright is he?
What he actually thinks and what he says are likely different things, however he can’t actually say some things and remain in a job…
Note to moderator – the “warned” link in the “Stop press” section links to a completely different story.
NOTED THANKS
“He called on the German Government to work on a more “economically feasible plan” for the country to decarbonise.”
Although Mr. Kaeser is to be commended for opposing the worst excesses of the Net Zero Hoax, everyone on the planet should be saying to their governments:
“We don’t want to decarbonise! We like carbon, “the core element for all forms of life”.
Louise Gilmour, Scotland Secretary of the GMB union, says “delusional” Net Zero policies championed by Ed Miliband are causing “arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history”
Who’s on the Scottish Executive Committee? – Scottish Labour
Guess who? Louise Gilmour!
It’s just the final touches to the destruction of our industry started by Labour’s nationalisation of it after the war.
There’s a certain neatness to it.
Government spending? Our taxes.
Doesn’t matter what anyone says, Mad Ed is right and that’s that…..Closing down the asylums and Care in the Community, has consequences…..
I have long said this. Shutting down the loony bins was the biggest social mistake.
It was done because of the appalling abuse that happened in so many of them, sadly no one planned for the problems that closing them would lead to.
Who could have imagined they would take over economic policy?
The EU/Fourth Reich and Green lunacy could not have succeeded without the support (loadsa €€€) of German Industry, which benefitted massively (loadsa €€€).
But creating Frankenstein’s Monster was the easy part, controlling it once it had taken on a life of its own, not so easy.
Obviously right, but it has been clear even to me, a humble guardian of my human’s vegetable patch, for many years- if he had spoken out before it was too late, it might have been better.
Joe Kaeser – seriously??? Sounds like the name of a Meal Brooks character. Lol.
OK, so I guess we can shortly expect the EU under pressure from Germany, to start a reverse-ferret on the Net Zero Insanity …. whilst claiming all the time that “nothing has changed.”
Meanwhile, Red Ed will continue to de-industrialise the UK and destroy whole industries and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
It truly is incredible that the wealthy West has been captured by this eco socialism masquerading as concern for the planet. The phoney planet savers aided by a compliant mainstream media have convinced the public that unless their standard of living is greatly reduced that all manner of bad things will happen. —-The Jet stream will stop, billions of climate refugees will flee poor countries, millions of species will go extinct etc etc etc. But with not a shred of evidence for any of it. Most of the public stick on their 6 O’Clock News after a hard days work and swallow all of this down as if it were ultimate truth. They won’t know that the IPCC itself have recently said that “worst case scenario’s from our climate models are very unlikely to occur”. ——So they allow these UN and WEF Technocrats to stand at podiums spouting their fake science to brainwash them. ——-Only when people like this guy from Siemens and many others start to speak out loudly about what the charlatans are doing and what their goals are will the public maybe start to fight back against this eco tyranny, and here in the UK both REFORM… Read more »