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Competitive renewable energy market - beneficial for climate action, German minister says

Economy Materials 29 March 2023 11:47 (UTC +04:00)
Competitive renewable energy market - beneficial for climate action, German minister says
Maryana Ahmadova
Maryana Ahmadova
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 29. Germany has set up the Climate Club to tackle climate change issues, Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, said, addressing the second day of the 9th Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, Trend reports.

"A Climate Club, basically, is a continuation of this dialogue at state level. Those countries which see themselves as pioneers, which want to contribute, feed in ideas, which want to show ways forward to engage in climate action are heartily welcome to join the Climate Club. We started with the G7, and now there are a lot of other countries who are getting on board, and also we wanted to set this up before COP28 and have this feed, this inclusive approach to climate policy into the system, and I hope this will generate feed in for the debate in the WTO, in the UN, in COP events, in order to ensure that certain rules for a level playing field are set up," he said.

According to the minister, the competitive environment is very good for the climate action.

"We can see competition between regions of those who are most resolute, most determined to press ahead with the development of hydrogen industry, with reproduction of electrolyzers, or solar panel, or wind turbines, or batteries, or semiconductors, who has access to critical minerals and raw materials. For climate action, that is good. The question is no longer "which form of production is the right one?" This question has been answered over the last few years. It will be green industry which shows the leadership we need, but the competition between the regions, which is good for climate action, also means that we have a competition between regions and in this," the minister explained.

At the same time, as Habeck pointed out, energy policy is the biggest challenge.

"Over the past three decades, we have developed a concept of economic and energy policy that says that there is a market and that it is free of political interests. It is organized on the basis of performance criteria, and where the most efficient production takes place, and where production and innovation take place, that is where processing will take place, and that is market-driven, and, in fact, in a market economy, everyone will benefit," he said.

However, as the minister noted, over the past few years, this has not been entirely true, because energy policy has always been a security policy, and security policy over the past few years has become geopolitics, interest politics, power politics.

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