German politicians call for more speed in climate action after floods

German politicians have called for more speed in climate action after extreme flooding in the western Rhineland area, with climate protection policies a key focus for the Sept. 26 election.

Armin Laschet, prime minister of North-Rhine Westphalia, said the accumulation of heavy rain and heat waves was linked to climate change.

"This means that we need more speed with climate protection measures on a European, federal [German] and global level," Laschet, who is also the leading candidate to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel, said July 15 after visiting the impacted areas.

Laschet trailed the Green Party's lead candidate when nominated in April, but topped the latest polls that pegged the CDU/CSU at around 30%, while the Greens fell below 20% just ahead of the Social-Democrats.

Laschet also warned not to exploit the event during the election campaign with immediate focus on rescue and recovery operations.

Back in 2002, a similar once in a life-time flood in Eastern Germany was a factor for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's coalition with the Greens to win the election.

The next government's focus will be implementing measures to achieve the new 2030 climate targets that were only approved by parliament in June.

Energy minister Peter Altmaier on July 13 presented updated framework assumptions based on the binding emissions cutting targets for all sectors that are to form the basis for energy policy coalition talks after the election.

That could include bringing forward coal exit dates and faster expansion of renewables.

Recovery operations

Meanwhile, recovery operations for the impacted areas to the west of the Rhine south of Cologne/Bonn and north of Mainz were ongoing July 16, with many customer still without power.

Local distribution grid operator E.ON Westnetz had still some 100,000 customers without electricity by 2 pm local time, it said.

The DSO recorded some 37 outages on the mid-voltage and 72 outages on the low-voltage grid mainly due to flooding of grid assets such as the Rheinbach substation, it said in an earlier statement, with all available resources focused on restoring supply.

Generation assets were not impacted, but RWE's Inden lignite mine near Aachen reported some flooding with mining operations stopped July 15.

One colleague working in the open-pit mine remained missing July 16, RWE said. Overall, the situation stabilized with water levels in the mine now falling, it added.

Flooded rivers on the German side were mainly flowing into the Rhine, with levels at Cologne elevated but below levels that would stop shipping completely (High water II).

Shipping restrictions were in place, with levels forecast to inch higher over the weekend, before falling back below the high water I mark by July 22, according to WSV and ELWIS data.

According to German weather service DWD, most areas in NRW and Rhineland-Palatine saw over 100 mm of rain over the 72 hours to July 15, with some of the worst impacted areas like Hagen at 176 mm.

Germany's environment minister Svenja Schulze, who fast-tracked the new climate law after a supreme court decision in April required for more near-term action by the government, said there was no doubt that climate change was already happening in Germany.

The minister said that Germany's new higher targets were already based upon the EU's tighter 2030 plans, but implementation required a massive and coordinate effort across Europe.