Munich CSU and SPD overturn 2022 coal referendum result

‘We take the referendum result very seriously,’ said Munich SPD politician Simone Burger, shortly after helping the city to ignore that same referendum result. To be honest, it has increasingly looked likely that the city council would overturn the result to close Munich’s coal-fired power station by 2022 – according to the economic committee, because it was unfeasible to do so.

Keep going until 2028? Unlikely. (image Renardo la vulpo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heizkraftwerk_M%C3%BCnchen_Nord,_6.jpeg)

Keep going until 2028? Unlikely. (image Renardo la vulpo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heizkraftwerk_M%C3%BCnchen_Nord,_6.jpeg)

The 2017 referendum result (60.2% voted for it) (Ger) had a deadline to be acted upon by the city after one year, meaning city politicians had an easy way out of what would have been a huge challenge, say the committee, of coming up with power of equal capacity. The Federal Network Agency, a national regulator, apparently, would have provided legal support to the decision.

Green politicians are furious, of course, and dispute the committee’s finding, insisting that sufficient power could have been found by 2022. ÖDP council member Tobias Ruff is quoted in the SZ (Ger) as questioning the committee’s findings. Others questioned whether, since the referendum, there had been the will to genuinely explore the possibilities of closing the energy gap.

Dominik Krause – of the Greens – is quoted on the party’s website as describing the decision as a ‘disregard for the will of the people’ (Ger). He says a plan to take the power plant out of operation ‘and used only in emergencies’ would ‘meet the legal requirements of the Federal Network Agency’.

The reality is that the coal-fired power station will continue to be used until 2028, by when the city says renewables, including geothermal energy, will have sufficiently closed the gap. The SZ reports that ‘750,000 tons of hard coal are burned every year’, which is planned to drop to 200,000 a year by the closure year.

But there is also another reality: because of what we know about the ongoing and worsening climate emergency, it seems inconceivable that Munich will still have a coal-fired power station so far into the 2020s.

This, then, isn’t the end of the story. There will be a few more twists and turns before history closes on Munich and coal-fired energy.

SPD and Greens need to deliver on Munich cycling transformation

Munich’s lord mayor, the SPD’s Dieter Reiter (Ger), has officially (Ger) put his support behind the two cycling petitions that recently gathered an impressive 160,000 signatures in the Bavarian capital.

The proposed Altstadt ring cycle route (Image: Radentscheid München)

On 24 July the city council will meet to decide how to proceed – meaning whether to accept the two petitions pretty much as they stand or to make improvements (it seems unlikely there will be sufficient voices in the Rathaus to reject the petitions, which would lead to referendums).

Organised by Radentscheid München, a cycling pressure group, the aim is twofold: to create a cycle path around the Altstadt ring and to comprehensively improve the shoddy, wholly inadequate cycling infrastructure across the whole city.

The result of the two petitions is that Munich now has the potential to become an outstanding cycling friendly city to match the best there is.

That’s the good news. The question is whether the city is prepared to come up with a plan radical enough.

The demand from Radentscheid München, armed with those 160,000 signatures, is nothing short of the transformation Munich: ‘a city-wide, continuous and dense cycling network [that is] safe, uncomplicated and stress-free …’

It will logically mean many streets without cars, for example, and vehicle parking places removed and cycling lanes put in their place. Some of this is already happening – far too slowly, on a tiny scale and the impact is laughably minimal.

With the effects of the climate emergency becoming burningly apparent every day, the opportunity afforded by the two petitions cannot be wasted. Nothing short of a radical transformation of Munich’s entire transportation philosophy will suffice.

Guardian article on ‘ten common myths about bike lanes - and why they’re wrong’

Guardian article on ‘ten common myths about bike lanes - and why they’re wrong’

Car drivers are not going to leave their vehicles at home, share cars, do without cars altogether (as many will have to in the very near future) without world-class transport infrastructure. Or without political support and action.

The conservative CSU has shown it cannot be relied on when it comes to the environment; it is down to Reiter’s SPD and the Greens in the Munich Rathaus. The petitions demonstrate that they have good public support. They now need to deliver.