Category: Climate

            Climate change is an existential threat to the planet. In the summer of 2021, one in three Americans experienced a climate disaster – whether from a heatwave, flash flood, wildfire, or drought[1]. Globally, more than 85% of the world’s population and four-fifths of the world’s landmass has suffered from extreme weather events linked to human-induced warming[2]. Tackling this problem requires significant, and rapid, international cooperation. The highlight of such cooperation to date has been the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

            Adopted by 195 countries on December 12^th, 2015, the Paris Agreement marks the first truly global effort to rein in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making it the most important international instrument in the fight against climate change. The primary goals of the agreement are to (1) “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”, (2) “adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience”, and (3) make “finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development”.[3] Since the Paris Agreement came into force in November 2016, national policy, international business, and financial flows into technology and foreign investments are informed by these three goals. At the COP27 U.N. climate summit in Egypt last month, the key discussions primarily surrounded how nations are building upon their commitments in the Paris Agreement.[4]

How did the world arrive at such a landmark agreement? The history of climate negotiations has been littered with failures leading up to this moment, including the unwillingness of the U.S. to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the early 2000s, and the collapse of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.[5] Nations have been uniquely reluctant to cooperate on climate change due to concerns of hindering their own economic development, perceived long time horizon to take action, free riders who incur benefits of other nations cutting emissions, and divides between developed and developing nations on who is obligated to do more/less.[6]  

The surprise success at Paris can be attributed to the two most powerful nations, and largest carbon dioxide emitters, coming together – the United States and China. Indeed, many analysts and insiders have argued Paris was only possible because of a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China, without which no global, multilateral deal would have been able to go through.[7]  This makes the Paris Agreement an ideal setting to test competing theories of international relations that can explain the behavior of states. Though the two nations are locked in a great power rivalry, they were able to compromise on a global climate deal. Understanding how and why great power cooperation is possible in the realm of climate change can help inform the conditions of success for future climate negotiations and other transnational challenges. The two theories I will test are Kenneth Waltz’s defensive realism and G. John Ikenberry’s liberalism. I will outline each theory’s assumptions, causal logic, and observable implications to predict how and why the U.S. and China agreed to form the Paris Agreement and the kind of mechanism we should expect to see in the evidence if the theory is correct.

Waltz’s Defensive Realism: Theory and Observable Implications

            In Waltz’s defensive realist worldview, states are the main actors in a world whose current structure is that of anarchy. This anarchy encourages states to adopt moderate and restrained strategies in a quest to ensure their survival, not to maximize their own power. This is because attempts to maximize power would cause other states to be insecure and form counter-alliances against a rising threat.[8] Moreso, Waltz assumes that nation-states will always seek maintain their self-interests regardless of the consequences of their actions on other states. For this reason, realists are skeptical of inter-state cooperation because one state often seeks to gain more than the other. This is known as the issue of relative gains, making states wary of cooperation for fear that they will end up relatively weaker than those they are cooperating with.[9] Waltz, however, doesn’t see the challenge of relative gains hampering cooperation in all instances, arguing that states will likely cooperate when the gains are large, and a state faces an external security threat it cannot manage on its own.[10] For defensive realists, cooperation can also help manage the security dilemma – where an increase in one state’s security causes another state to perceive it as an aggressive act which decreases their security and answers in kind, causing a vicious spiral.[11] This security dilemma draws its roots in states being unsure of one another’s intentions, which can be resolved through increased cooperation and collaboration.

            Under a defensive realist lens, what could we expect to see in Chinese and American behavior leading up to and at the Paris Climate summit? As great powers, we could expect that both perceive climate change as a potential threat to their survival and as a result they are coming together out of a desire to maximize their survival, not their power. Statements or declarations framing climate change as a security threat will help confirm this. Given the scale of the challenge, they may also decide that they need to rise above their self-interests and fear of relative gains to counterbalance against the rising threat of climate change through cooperation. Evidence of this could be found in looking at the structure of the Paris Agreement to see if the United States or China allows one or the other to achieve relative gains in order for higher absolute gains through global collaboration. Lastly, to avoid a security dilemma they may engage in a number of consultations to better understand each other’s intentions and expectations leading up to the Paris summit. Here, I will look to see how frequently and to what extent the U.S. and China engaged in diplomatic talks to hash out specific positions before the summit.

Waltz’s Defensive Realism: Testing Hypotheses and Findings  

            First,China and America should both perceive climate change as a threat to their security prompting them to take action to maximize their chance of survival. Here, the evidence is overwhelming. At the 2015 State of the Union, President Obama declared that “No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change”[12]. A few months later in a speech to the U.S. Coast Guard, Obama went further, saying, “climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security. And make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country.”[13]China framed the challenge in similarly dire ways. In a 900-page scientific assessment released in the weeks before the Paris Summit, China found that climate change will trigger international disputes within their borders due to conflicts over water resources and transnational migration. It even found that potentially every piece of infrastructure built on China’s coast is vulnerable.[14] China’s top weather scientist said climate change will have “huge impact” and China would emphasize “climate security.”[15]  

            Second, China and the U.S. should have sought to counterbalance against the rising, external threat of climate change through cooperation – conceding relative gains in the name of combatting a more formidable challenge that neither can solve alone. One example of this was the Paris Agreement stipulation that developed countries would contribute $100 billion annually to help vulnerable countries adapt and mitigate against climate change.[16] This decision, agreed to by the U.S., demonstrates a willingness by the U.S. concede financial gains in exchange for climate action. The strongest evidence, though, was China willing to give up, partially, the “common, but differentiated” responsibilities framework that had guided the last 20 years of climate negotiations. In 1995, the world gathered in Berlin to operationalize the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Here, they arrived at the “Berlin Mandate” which declared that any emission cuts would primarily be borne by developed countries – like the U.S. and E.U. – excusing developing countries, like China, from any emission reduction targets.[17] In the years that followed, developing countries held strongly to this framework out of self-interest because they were highly suspicious of climate negotiations being used as a tool of developed countries to stymie their economic growth and development.[18]

Before the Paris Agreement, China still echoed its belief that “common, but differentiated responsibilities” should be the organizing principle of climate negotiations. Here, China was certainly acting in its own self-interests even though it had already become the world’s largest CO₂ emitter by 2007. [19] However, China agreed to make emission cuts of its own for the first time in Paris – including peaking its CO₂ emissions by 2030, increasing non-fossil fuels in its energy mix to 20%, reforesting 4.5 billion cubic meters of land, and lowering its CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 percent.[20] This could reflect a decision calculus of defensive realism – China recognized the size and scope of an emerging threat and decided to forgo its self-interest of unhampered economic development, look past the relative gains that emission cuts would give its rivals, and collaborate with the developed countries to slow the impacts of climate change.

Third, China and the U.S. should have sought to limit the security dilemma by better understanding each other’s perspectives and intentions before Paris. There was ample evidence of the two nations carving out climate as a space to make common progress even while the two jostled for military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific. For example, in 2013 the two established the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group to cooperate on topics like energy efficiency, heavy industries, and sharing emissions data. [21] Xi and Obama both met two months before the Paris Summit hashing out a number of climate positions and declaring jointly that both nations would “strengthen bilateral coordination and cooperation…to promote sustainable development and the transition to green, low-carbon, and climate-resilient economies.”[22]

Ikenberry’s Liberalism: Theory and Observable Implications

            In opposition to defensive realism, G. John Ikenberry defines the world order not as an anarchic fight for survival and power, but as a set of “governing arrangements between states, including its fundamental rules, principles, and institutions” whereby institutional arrangements create a political process which ensures that various states in the order remain “linked and engaged with each other.”[23] Liberalism’s core beliefs are that the spread of democracy and economic interdependence through international institutions and arrangements will strengthen peace. Its theorists see a “slow but inexorable journey away from the anarchic world” as commerce and institutions bind nations together.[24] What are the characteristics of these institutions and the states that form them? Ikenberry argues that a leading state will want to create a constitutional settlement whereby they get weaker states to agree to be bound to a “set of rules and institutions” now and in the future. [25] In return, the leading power also offers to limit its own autonomy and arbitrary exercise of power. From the vantage point of the weaker states, they need assurances that the leading state will actually abide by its commitments and is credibly restrained, otherwise they will balance against them.[26]

            In order for both sides to maximally gain this assurance, Ikenberry suggests a “binding institutional settlement” that locks in countries within an institution. The highest form of this is when institutional agreements are formally ratified as treaties. Ikenberry argues that treaties contain the authority and force of legal agreements and embed them “in a wider legal and political framework that reinforces the likelihood that it will have some continuing force as state policy.”[27] Ikenberry goes on to suggest that leading states have more incentives to build the world order around binding institutions, and in particular democracies are better able and more willing to create them because of their openness and decentralization.[28]

            Under the lens of Ikenberry’s liberalism, the most significant observational implication we should expect is the United States as the leading state and China as the secondary state to come to Paris looking to create a binding institutional agreement to tackle climate change. I will look for evidence whereby the Paris Agreement was structured such that both countries would become locked into a set rules that endures beyond the existing power dynamic between the two of them, and where the United States gives up some freedom as the leading state in exchange for China coming on board. We should expect the United States as a democratic leading state to advocate for a treaty-based architecture with the force of legal authority to create a maximally “sticky” institution to shape and constrain state action from its rival well into the future.

Ikenberry’s Liberalism: Testing Hypotheses and Findings  

            In reality, U.S. did not come into Paris seeking to arrive at a binding international climate treaty structure. Instead, the U.S. advocated for a voluntary-based approach where countries would be able to set their own emission reduction goals, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which are submitted to the UNFCCC.[29] There is no legally binding mechanism to stick to those goals, instead reputational and peer pressure is exerted for countries to meet and “ratchet up” its targets over time.[30] The Paris Agreement itself has little legal enforcement as it does not impose any fees for penalties for violations of its terms and there is no governing body with authority to enforce compliance.[31] But as a creative workaround, negotiators made the need to issue an NDC as legally binding but did not impose a legal obligation to meet it. Some argue this hybrid structure is precisely why 195 countries joined.[32]

            The structure of the Paris Agreement hardly follows Ikenberry’s prescription, particularly for a leading state that is a democracy. In fact, the U.S. specifically advocated this structure because it would not require Congressional approval since the U.S. was not to be held legally accountable for any specific targets. The Paris Agreement’s voluntary structure seems to fail Ikenberry’s position that the U.S. would want to bind its nearest peer rival, China, into an agreement that would ensure its compliance and action in the future, rather focusing on limiting the constraints to its own self-interests while still advancing climate action.

Conclusion

            After examining the formation of the Paris Agreement through the lens of Kenneth Waltz’s defensive realism and G. John Ikenberry’s liberalism, I find that defensive realism has a stronger explanatory force for how the U.S. and China ultimately came to the table. Both recognized that climate change was a security threat to its position in the system and felt compelled to put aside their self-interest and fear of relative gains to balance against the threat. The scholarly implications are more damning for Ikenberry’s liberalism which could not explain why the U.S. did not seek to create a legally binding structure to credibly restrain either itself or China. In fact, I would argue that constructivism could better explain the treaty structure since meeting the Paris goals is based on peer pressure, values, and norms motivating climate action.[33]

The policy implications are that further climate action remains possible as long as the security threat remains, and the great powers in the system have a forum to collaborate and come to an understanding to take action. The era of binding international agreements for climate are seemingly over and liberalist approaches will not define the negotiations in the near-to-medium term. This is an avenue of future research to understand under what conditions the U.S. and China might be willing to explore binding commitments. A limitation of this research is that it only looks at publicly available documents whereas interviews with key negotiators could reveal what dimensions of the climate issue could be pressing enough to push the great powers into a legally binding architecture that enhances the durability of the Paris agreement.

---

Works Cited

[1] Sarah Kaplan and Andrew Ba Tran, “Nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer,” The Washington Post, September 4^th, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/04/climate-disaster-hurricane-ida/.

[2] Annabelle Timsit and Sarah Kaplan, “At least 85 percent of the world’s population has been affected by human-induced climate change, new study shows,” The Washington Post, October 11^th, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/10/11/85-percent-population-climate-impacts/ 

[3] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Adoption of the Paris Agreement,” December 12^th, 2015, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2646274/Updated-l09r01.pdf              

[4] Helen Briggs and Esme Stallard, “COP27: Why is the Paris climate agreement still important?”, BBC, November 2^nd, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35073297

[5] Brad Plumer, “Past climate treaties failed. So the Paris deal will try something radically different.” Vox, Deceber 15th, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/10105422/paris-climate-deal-history

[6] Stefano Carattini, Simon Levin, and Alessandro Tavoni, “Cooperation in the Climate Commons”, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Volume 13, Number 2, Summer 2019, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1093/reep/rez009

[7] Robert Falkner, “A Minilateral Solution for Global Climate Change? On Bargaining Efficiency, Club Benefits, and International Legitimacy”, Cambridge University Press, March 21^st, 2016, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/minilateral-solution-for-global-climate-change-on-bargaining-efficiency-club-benefits-and-international-legitimacy/ED5F11D9E36686A944A64D1351701F57 and Robert O. Keohane & David G. Victor, “Cooperation and discord in global climate policy”, Nature Climate Change volume 6, pages 570–575 (2016), https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2937

[8] Kenneth Waltz, “Theory of International Politics,” Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1979, https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/486328/mod_resource/content/0/Kenneth%20N.%20Waltz%20Theory%20of%20International%20Politics%20Addison-Wesley%20series%20in%20political%20science%20%20%20%201979.pdf

[9] Robert Powell, “Absolute and Relative Gains in International Relations Theory,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 1303-132, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1963947

[10] Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, “Security seeking under anarchy: Defensive realism revisited” International Security, 25(3), 128–161, 2000-2001, http://www.rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/default/files/taliaferro%202001_0.pdf

[11] Robert Jervis, “Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation: Understanding the Debate,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer, 1999), pp. 42-63, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2539347

[12] Madison Park, “Obama: No greater threat to future than climate change,” CNN, January 21^st, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/us/climate-change-us-obama

[13] President Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement”, May 20^th, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/20/remarks-president-united-states-coast-guard-academy-commencement

[14] Chris Buckley, “Chinese Report on Climate Change Depicts Somber Scenarios,” New York Times, November 29^th, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/world/asia/chinese-report-on-climate-change-depicts-somber-scenarios.html

[15] BBC, “Climate change: China official warns of ‘huge impact’”, March 22^nd, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-32006972

[16] NPR, “2 Degrees, $100 Billion: The World Climate Agreement, By The Numbers”, December 2^nd, 2015,  https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/12/459502597/2-degrees-100-billion-the-world-climate-agreement-by-the-numbers

[17] Bas Arts and Wolfgang Rudig, “Negotiating the ‘Berlin mandate’: Reflections on the first ‘conference of the parties’ to the UN framework convention on climate change”, Environmental Politics Volume 4, 1995 – Issue 3, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09644019508414218?journalCode=fenp20

[18] Ibid. 17.

[19] John Vidal and David Adam, “China overtakes US as world’s biggest CO2 emitter,” The Guardian, June 19^th, 2007,  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews

[20] Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), “CHINA’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PARIS CLIMATE

AGREEMENT,” July 2015, https://www.c2es.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/chinas-contribution-paris-climate-agreement.pdf

[21] U.S. Department of State, “U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group Fact Sheet”, July 10, 2013, https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/07/211768.htm

[22]  The White House, “U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change,” September 25, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/25/us-china-joint-presidential-statement-climate-change

[23] G. John Ikenberry, “After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars”, Princeton University Press, 2001. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3znx0v

[24] Jack Snyder, “One World, Rival Theories”, Foreign Policy, October 26^th, 2009, https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/one-world-rival-theories/

[25] Ibid. 23.

[26] Ibid. 23.

[27] Ibid. 23.

[28] Ibid. 23.

[29] Christopher Joyce, “Why Negotiators At Paris Climate Talks Are Tossing The Kyoto Model,” NPR, November 30^th, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/30/457402547/why-negotiators-at-paris-climate-talks-are-tossing-the-kyoto-model

[30] United Nations, “The Paris Agreement,” https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement#:~:text=The%20Agreement%20is%20a%20legally,have%20joined%20the%20Paris%20Agreement

[31] Lila MacLellan, “Is the Paris Climate Agreement legally binding?”, Quartz, November 16^th, 2021, https://qz.com/2086578/is-the-paris-climate-agreement-legally-binding

[32] Ibid. 31.

[33] John Boli and George Thomas, “Constructing World Culture: International Non-Governmental Organizations Since 1875, Stanford University Press, 1999, https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1308948

On March 11^th, 2011, the largest earthquake in Japan’s history set off a tsunami which breached the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The flooding destroyed the plant’s power generators preventing cool water from cycling to the hot nuclear core. Fearing a meltdown, Japan’s prime minister declared a nuclear emergency and ordered the evacuation of 150,000 residents living within a few mile radius.[1]

Nearly 6,000 miles away, Chancellor Angela Merkel watched on in horror. Only three days after the Fukushima incident, on March 14^th, 2011, she made the decision to set Germany on the path to become atomfrei – non-nuclear.[2] At the time, nuclear power supplied nearly a quarter of Germany’s electricity.[3]

The legacy of Merkel’s decision to phase out Germany’s nuclear power fleet casts a long shadow on Europe’s largest economy today. The German’s are in the midst of an energy crisis as Russian gas flows have been cut off raising electricity prices by 60% from 2020[4], prompting industrial slowdowns, layoffs, and nationwide economic contraction. Making matters worse, Germany’s 2045 net-zero pledge is in jeopardy as greenhouse gas emissions have increased nearly 5%, the most in 30 years[5], due to the increased use of coal to fill the energy gap.[6]

More than 10 years later, this consequential decision is ripe for analysis. Did Merkel act too abruptly without sufficiently considering the pros and cons, or did she make the right decision with the information she had at the time? The process of coming to a decision on the nuclear phaseout reveals a number of strengths and weaknesses about Merkel as a leader and the range of leadership styles she employed.

Strengths of the Decision-Making Process

Leveraging Expert Power

The first strength was that Merkel leaned in on a skills-based leadership approach because she had a Ph.D. in physics.[7] Unlike her contemporaries, like Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicolas Sarkozy, who had backgrounds primarily in law, she was an actual scientist who wrote her dissertation on quantum chemistry and was thus able to understand and speak the technical language around nuclear power. Recently, she said, “you know from me that with my training as a physicist, I of course apportion a great deal of weight to academic advice and use it myself.” [8]

She was able to exercise her credentials as a form of “expert power” where her decision on weighing the safety of nuclear power had more credibility. Others in the government deferred to her expert power with Martin Faulstich, chairman of the German Advisory Council on the Environment, saying at the time, “As a scientist, Merkel understood climate change and the dangers of nuclear power.”[9] A prominent journalist covering her at the time, noted “Her years of research instilled in her the conviction that she has a very good sense of how likely events are, not only in physics but also in politics.”[10]

Being Flexible in Policies and Beliefs

The second strength was that she decided to pursue a policy that had popular support even though it meant flip-flopping on her and her party’s previous support of nuclear power – this underscored the                                                                                                               seriousness and gravity of the issue that Fukushima raised.  The German anti-nuclear movement has existed for decades beginning in the 1970s. It gained broader public support following the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 resulting in a “nuclear consensus” with Germany’s large utilities that the country’s nuclear power stations would not operate beyond 32 years, leading to a full phaseout by 2022.[11]

When Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, regained power in 2009 she helped push through a reversal of the nuclear phaseout, extending the operating life of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants for an average of 12 years. This was a deeply unpopular decision with the public resulting in tens of thousands taking to the streets in nationwide protests in the fall of 2010. A survey from the newspaper Die Zeit at the time found that nearly 50% of the population was against any extension of Germany’s nuclear power plants. Just a few months later, Fukushima unfolded, prompting Merkel to turn her back on nuclear saying, ““Fukushima changed my attitude towards nuclear energy.”[12]

While this was portrayed as a U-turn that was done by Merkel to shift to wherever the prevailing political winds were, those close to her describe the decision as closer to a genuine “awakening”.[13] In contrast to her carefully calculated response to the Eurozone crisis, she demonstrated little hesitation in reversing her previous position from just a few months ago and taking on her party and the powerful utility industry. This displayed an acute sense of self-awareness and self-regulation not to be locked into an ideological or policy position, but to be open to change and recognize the moods, emotions, and drives of the nation around her in the moment.

Visionary Leadership

The third strength was demonstrating transformational leadership by articulating a vision for a sustainable Germany that would become the leader in renewable energy to replace the need for nuclear power. “We want to end the use of nuclear energy and reach the age of renewable energy as fast as possible,” Merkel said as she announced the nuclear moratorium.[14] To do so, Merkel called upon to Germans to lead an Energiewende, an “energy turn” or “energy transition”, through a long-term societal and economic transformation to create a climate-neutral energy system by 2045.[15] She laid out a bold vision with an ambitious series of targets to double the share of renewable energy from ~16%[16] at the time to 35% of electricity generation by 2020, 50% in 2030, 65% in 2040, and more than 80% by 2050.[17]

Merkel seized the national fear around nuclear power to inspire the nation to become a renewable energy powerhouse instead, thus staking her credibility on a multi-decade energy transition. In rallying her supporters, she proclaimed, “If we succeed, [the Energiewende] – and I’m convinced of it – will become another German export hit. And I’m also convinced that if any country can succeed with this Energiewende, then it’s Germany.”[18]

Weaknesses of the Decision-Making Process

Insular Process Without Sufficiently Consulting Key Experts

Merkel’s decision-making process was not without its flaws. The biggest weakness was an insular decision-making team that didn’t involve key experts. As a result, a number of faulty assumptions were made about the vulnerability of German nuclear power plants. During the pivotal days after the Fukushima incident, it was reported that Merkel “reached the momentous decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 after discussing it one night over red wine with her husband, Joachim Sauer, a physicist and university professor, at their apartment in central Berlin.”[19]

Coming to such a serious decision over just consultations with one’s spouse hardly seems like the ideal process. Indeed, as a result some erroneous assumptions were made about the true risk that Germany’s nuclear power plants posed. Merkel and her party were supportive of nuclear power in the wake of Chernobyl because they believed the nuclear safety, transparency, and technology standards in the Soviet Union were poor – vulnerabilities that German safety standards and technologies would not succumb to.[20]  Fukushima changed that perception. Merkel remarked, “we couldn’t help but take notice that, even in a technologically advanced country like Japan, the risks of nuclear energy cannot be securely controlled.”[21]

However, this was a faulty assumption – Japan did in fact did have lower nuclear safety standards. For example, Japan’s nuclear emergency planners were relying on a century-old plan for how to prevent flooding in response to an earthquake or tsunami. By comparison, German nuclear plants were designed to withstand 10,000-year floods.[22] Merkel’s rationale that if a nuclear accident can happen in Japan, it could also happen in Germany was too simplistic. As one observer noted, “had she consulted her own experts, her concerns could easily have been dispelled.”[23]

Interestingly, it appears Merkel did convene some experts after her initial announcement. After announcing the three-month moratorium on extending the life of ten of Germany’s nuclear plants, she ordered a safety check of all existing nuclear plants and established the Reactor Safety Commission to advise the government on the technical and operational safety of the nuclear fleet in light of what was seen in Fukushima.

The Reactor Safety Commission report was issued in May 2011 and concluded that the safety standards in Germany were quite high, but the seven oldest plants were not designed to withstand a plane crash. This ended up becoming the justification for shutting down the oldest reactors. In July 2011, the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, took up Merkel’s proposal and used the commission’s report to vote overwhelmingly to shut down all of Germany’s nuclear plants by 2022.[24] 

Given the high nuclear safety standards and relatively unlikeliness of a 9/11-style attack on nuclear plants, why move forward with the phaseout? This leads to the second major weakness of Merkel’s decision-making process – potentially over-emphasizing the political dynamics of the nuclear phaseout compared to longer term economic, climate, and security-related implications.

Prioritizing Domestic Politics over Economics and Energy Security  

At the time that Fukushima happened, it coincided with a critically important campaign period in the bell-weather state of Baden-Württemberg which was highly influential to national German politics. Merkel’s party had been in power there for nearly 60 years and was under threat by the Green Party, which was staunchly anti-nuclear. As she went to go campaign there in March, she was greeted by throngs of anti-nuclear protestors chanting “Shut them down!”.[25] A poll released by news channel N-TV at the time showed that 88% of Germans wanted the nuclear plants to shut sooner rather than later.[26]

Although it is difficult to know how much politics played a role in her final decision, she was undoubtedly sensitive to the implications. That same sensitivity, however, did not seem to be granted to the other stakeholders that would be impacted – including German industries, utilities, and national security advisors.

Germany is one of the world’s largest producers of cars, chemicals, and heavy machinery, requiring a stable and continuous flow of electricity. Pulling the plug on a quarter of electricity generation was met with heavy criticism from the Federal Association or German Industry, known as BDI. It’s president Hans-Peter Keitel wrote a letter to Merkel warning her about the consequences this would have for German industrial businesses which drove two-thirds of the German economy.[27] Germany’s four major utilities, E.ON, RWE, Vatenfall, and enBW, issued similar warnings – arguing that nuclear energy was a critical part of a stable electricity supply and it would be cheaper and cleaner than dirtier alternatives which would inevitably fill the gap.[28]

Lastly, Merkel turned a blind eye to the geopolitical implications of the nuclear phaseout. At time of the decision, Germany was Europe’s second largest importer of Russian gas, which provided almost 40% of all of Germany’s natural gas.[29] The day after the Bundestag formalized Merkel’s nuclear phase out, German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler went to Russia to discuss their energy relationship and gas exports.

Merkel was warned by her national security advisors that the nuclear phaseout would result in Germany becoming more dependent on Russian natural gas.[30]  Analysts and officials also forebode that the phaseout could embolden Russia and “spell trouble in the long run” because of Germany’s reliance on Russian energy. This was already an explicit calculation on the Russian side. In summer of 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was reportedly “looking to secure closer access to consumers in Germany…after Berlin’s recent announcement that it would phase out of nuclear power by 2022 increased its need for alternatives.”[31]

Decision Outcomes

Eleven years since Merkel’s decision, how has the nuclear phaseout fared for both its detractors and supporters?

Renewable energy has grown exponentially in the German energy mix and is on track to reach Merkel’s stated goal. Germany generated around 120 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable power in 2011, going up to 238 TWh in 2021.[32] As a result, renewable power has gone from around 16% of total German power generation to around 40% today – the goal was 35% by 2020 and 50% by 2050.

However, the growth in renewables has not fully closed the gap left by nuclear. In turn, Germany has ramped up its coal production to provide the baseload generation that nuclear power previously did. At least 20 coal plants have been brought back online or had their lifetimes extended.[33] The result has been an increase in annual CO₂ emissions by 36 megatons, with an estimated 1,000 additional deaths from air pollution. [34] This has put Merkel’s 2030 emissions reduction target out of reach until potentially 2046.[35]

Along with the increase in emissions, the political savviness of Merkel’s decision has not aged well. German perceptions of the Energiewende are much less positive now than at the time. Today, nearly 82% of Germans believe the country needs to either delay closure of their remaining nuclear plants or they should be used in the long term – virtually a 180-degree reversal from the sentiment in 2011.[36]

This could be attributed to the fact that electricity prices have skyrocketed by an average of 60% which is driving inflation to nearly 10% year over year.[37] Energy costs for one German factory are expected to go up by 600% next year.[38] As a result, Germany is in fact keeping two of its three last nuclear plants on a “standby” status until April 2023 rather than completing the closure by the end of 2022 like Merkel had pledged.[39]

The decision to extend the nuclear plants has its roots in a fear that Merkel’s foreign policy advisors had back in 2011 – that Russia would not be a reliable energy partner. Indeed, since the invasion of Ukraine has Russia has throttled gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline down to 20% of its capacity[40], including completely halting gas flows for supposed “maintenance purposes”[41]. Wholesale gas prices in Germany have shot up 400%.[42]

Ultimately, Merkel’s nuclear phaseout achieved some of its goals, but largely ended up proving its detractors correct. While renewable energy has scaled impressively, overall Germany’s energy security and environmental footprint has deteriorated. The COVID-19 pandemic followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have acted as twin shocks to the German economy and energy prices which have resulted in Germans seeking to extend the few nuclear plants that have yet to go offline and ultimately popular opinion reverting to support of nuclear power, regardless of any perceived risks.

Recommendations

In re-casting of Angela Merkel’s consequential decision to phase out Germany’s nuclear fleet, there are several ways the decision could have been more effective and executed more strategically. Here, I define a strategic decision as one that would have addressed the concerns around nuclear safety while also strengthening Germany’s economic and energy security. A more effective decision I define as one with a more robust decision-making process that better reflects the expert consensus on nuclear power along with the will of the people.

1. To make a more effective decision, Angela Merkel should have engaged in a more robust, and drawn-out consultative process with key nuclear power experts, energy industry leaders, foreign policy staff, and the Christian Democratic Union party leadership.

From the publicly available reporting, it appears as though Merkel was convinced to backtrack on nuclear while watching footage from Fukushima and ultimately made the final decision over dinner with her husband. The fact that the decision of this magnitude was made merely three days after Fukushima, while it was still occurring and all the details had not fully come out, and with her husband who was not a government employee, reflects a deficient consultation process with key experts in the relevant domain areas.

Putting ourselves in Merkel’s shoes on March 11^th, 2011, as Fukushima was unfolding, a more effective approach would be to start from a standpoint of whether any action needed to be taken at all. Determining this answer would involve immediate engagement with the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (known as BMUV). It appears that Merkel only went to BMUV and the Reactor Safety Commission after the initial moratorium was announced which effectively set the political decision in motion. As was discussed earlier, there was a vast difference between Japanese and German nuclear safety standards and there were few if any parallels between what happened in Japan and what could happen in Germany – a fact which Merkel could have found out before announcing the moratorium if she had consulted with them.

If she was still resolved to move forward, she should have convened a Nuclear Transition Council with a six-month mandate to come to a decision on the scope and timeline of a nuclear phaseout. This council would be represented by key energy industry leaders including the four largest utilities – E.ON, RWE, Vatenfall, and enBW – as well as national security staff focused on energy security and Russia, and her political party’s (Christian Democratic Union) campaign arm, equivalent to our DNC or RNC. This council would have been able to provide a holistic perspective on how a nuclear phase out would affect electricity prices, CO₂ emissions, the relationship with Russia, and political ramifications. By taking an integrated, expert-driven approach, Merkel would have avoided blindsiding any particular constituency and would more likely execute a policy that satisfied a broader swath of affected stakeholders.  

Critics may argue that Merkel did not have time to convene such a council, or that she did consult with these experts at the time. However, it was clear from the timeline that the thrust of the decision was made between March 11^th and March 14^th – three days was hardly enough time for an in-depth analysis of the situation on the ground in Japan and the impact of phasing out a quarter of the electricity supply in Germany forever. In addition, Merkel reportedly “sidelined foreign policy and security experts who warned her against seeing Russia as a reliable partner in trade” and moved forward with the phaseout.[43]  To suggest that she did not have time to engage in this process would presume that she made the decision with a political clock in mind, in particular the Baden-Württemberg elections at the end of March. If this were the case and Merkel did not have six months to let this consultative dialogue play out, then recommendation number two could have let her make a more strategic play.

2. To make a more strategic decision, Angela Merkel should have sought to bolster the safety of Germany’s oldest nuclear plants while still advocating for Energiewende – the energy transition – to create an alternate German political economy which shed dependence on Russian energy.   

The most strategic outcome for Merkel would have been one where she could present herself as genuinely responding to the concerns of German citizens regarding nuclear safety while putting the country on a path to a clean energy future that would also be independent of Russian energy supplies. How could she have done this?

First, in response to Fukushima, Merkel should have immediately ordered a review of the nuclear safety status, codes, and regulations for all seventeen of Germany’s nuclear reactors and order retrofitting or retiring of the oldest/most vulnerable reactors based on that review. This would have given her the flexibility to partially phase out nuclear power, or not at all, based on an evidenced-based approach that brought in the relevant experts while also appearing sensitive to German consternation about the safety of nuclear power – a message that could have also played well politically.

Second, in tandem with this decision, Merkel should have announced the Energiewende as geopolitical move, not one to compensate the loss of nuclear power. Making Germany a global powerhouse in the renewable power industry would strengthen its foreign policy. Rather than give an opening to Russia to further tighten their screws on German energy dependence, it would have forced them on a backfoot to look for alternative markets as German baseload power would be sustained by nuclear in the short to medium term. Although this could not have completely prevented the impacts of COVID-19, it could possibly have deterred the Russian invasion of Ukraine which was emboldened by their belief that Europe would not mount a coordinated response, in part because of German reliance on Russian energy.[44]

Ultimately, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tenure will forever be marked by her decision to phase out German nuclear power. While there were certainly admirable traits in her courage and political savviness to make such a consequential decision, I believe it will be remembered as a hastily conceived and executed plan without the right experts or political constituencies to make Germany’s energy transformation successful in the long term. Indeed, as Germans were told by their former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble in October to “stop whining” and “just put on a sweater, or maybe a second sweater” in the event of energy blackouts this winter[45] – one can’t help but wonder whether Merkel’s unplugging of the country’s nuclear power is responsible for putting them in this situation.

---

References

[1] Adam Janos, “Fukushima Timeline: How an Earthquake Triggered Japan’s 2011 Nuclear Disaster,” History, March 5^th 2021, https://www.history.com/news/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-japan-earthquake-timeline

[2] Helen Pidd and Suzanne Goldenberg, “Germany suspends power station extension plans as nuclear jitters spread,” The Guardian, March 14^th, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/14/germany-japan-nuclear-industry

[3] Richard Van Noorden, “The knock-on effects of Germany’s nuclear phase-out”, Nature, June 3^rd, 2011, https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2011.348

[4] Anna Cooban, “Rocketing energy costs are savaging German industry “, CNN Business, October 7^th, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/07/energy/german-industry-energy-prices

[5] Associated Press, “Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’”, The Guardian, August 15^th, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/15/germany-set-for-biggest-rise-in-greenhouse-gases-for-30-years

[6] Angela Cullen, “Germany’s Carbon Emissions Rise in Setback for Climate Goals,” Bloomberg, March 15^th, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-15/germany-s-carbon-emissions-rise-in-setback-for-climate-goals?leadSource=uverify%20wall

[7] Emma Johnston And Kylie Walker, “OPINION: Angela Merkel’s career shows why we need more scientists in politics,” UNSW Sydney, September 24^th, 2021, https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/angela-merkels-career-shows-why-we-need-more-scientists-politics

[8] Reuters, “I’m a physicist, I listen to the science, Germany’s Merkel says”, November 2^nd, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-merkel-sci/im-a-physicist-i-listen-to-the-science-germanys-merkel-says-idUSKBN27I1PP

[9] Paul Hockenos, “The history of the Energiewende”, Clean Energy Wire, June 22^nd 2015,  https://www.cleanenergywire.org/dossiers/history-energiewende

[10] Christian Schwägerl, “How Angela Merkel became Germany’s unlikely green energy champion,” The Guardian, May 9^th, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/may/09/angela-merkel-green-energy

[11] Kerstine Appunn, “The history behind Germany’s nuclear phase-out”, Clean Energy Wire, March 9h, 2021, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out

[12] Deutschland.De, “Especially memorable”, September 18^th, 2021,  https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/elections-in-germany-angela-merkel-quotes

[13] Judy Dempsey, “How Merkel Decided to End Nuclear Power”, The New York Times, August 13^th, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/europe/13iht-germany.html

[14] Ibid. 10.

[15] Agora Energiewende, “Q1 What is the German Energiewende?”, https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/the-energiewende/the-german-energiewende/q1-what-is-the-german-energiewende/

[16] Patrick Grosskopf, “Is 100% Renewable Energy possible for Germany by 2020?”, Global Energy Network Institute, August 2011, http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/research/renewable-energy-potential-of-germany/Germany_Final_PBMfinal.pdf

[17] Ibid. 10.  

[18] Solar Choice, “Renewables are now mainstream in Germany: Merkel”, February 4^th, 2014, https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/news/renewables-are-now-mainstream-in-germany-merkel-040214/

[19] Ibid. 13.

[20] Miranda A. Schreurs, “The politics of phase-out”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2012,

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0096340212464359

[21] Suddeutsche Zeitung, “Diese Leute sind brandgefährlich für unsere Demokratie”, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/zitate-zur-atomdebatte-hoch-lebe-die-kernkraft-die-kernkraft-muss-weg-1.1072431

[22] Leon Holly, “Germany’s Quiet Nuclear Disaster”, Areo Magazine, June 1^st, 2022, https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/06/germanys-quiet-nuclear-disaster/

[23] Ibid. 22.

[24]  Ibid. 20.

[25] Spiegel International, “Merkel Gambles Credibility with Nuclear U-Turn”, March 21^st, 2011, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/out-of-control-merkel-gambles-credibility-with-nuclear-u-turn-a-752163.html

[26] Ibid. 2.  

[27] Ibid. 13.  

[28] Ibid. 20.

[29] Ibid. 13.  

[30] Patrick Wintour, “‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy”, The Guardian, June 2^nd, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-dependence-russian-energy-gas-oil-nord-stream

[31] DW, “Energy Matters,” July 18^th, 2011, https://www.dw.com/en/energy-adds-spark-to-merkel-medvedev-talks/a-15249056

[32] Kerstine AppunnYannick HaasJulian Wettengel, “Germany’s energy consumption and power mix in charts”, Clean Energy Wire, August 3^rd, 2022, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts

[33] Rob Schmitz, “Amid an energy crisis, Germany turns to the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel”, NPR, September 27^th 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis

[34] Ibid. 22.

[35] Chris Lo, “Energiewende: assessing Angela Merkel’s clean energy legacy”, Power Technology, December 12^th, 2019, https://www.power-technology.com/analysis/energiewende-assessing-angela-merkels-clean-energy-legacy/

[36] Isabeau van Halm, “Weekly data: Shift in Germany’s perception of nuclear energy,” Energy Monitor, August 22^nd, 2022, https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-shift-in-germanys-perception-of-nuclear-energy

[37] The Local De, “How electricity prices are rising across Germany”, November 25^th, 2022, https://www.thelocal.de/20221125/how-electricity-prices-are-rising-across-germany/

[38] Ibid. 4.  

[39] Sonal Patel, “Germany Halts Closure of Two Nuclear Plants Until April 2023,” Power Magazine, September 8^th, 2022, https://www.powermag.com/germany-halts-closure-of-two-nuclear-plants-until-april-2023/

[40] AP, “Russia to cut gas through Nord Stream 1 to 20% of capacity”, July 25^th, 2022,  https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-germany-government-and-politics-1acacc374cd6d9bc860de00a73b8abee

[41] CNBC, “Russia’s Gazprom keeps gas pipeline to Germany switched off,” September 2^nd, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/russias-gazprom-keeps-gas-pipeline-to-germany-switched-off.html

[42] Ibid. 4.  

[43] Philip Oltermann, “Germany agonises over Merkel’s legacy: did she hand too much power to Putin?”, The Guardian, March 5^th, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/05/germany-angela-merkel-power-to-vladimir-putin-russia

[44] Matthew Karnitschnig, “How Germany helped blaze Putin’s path into Ukraine”, Politico EU, February 24^th, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/how-germany-helped-blaze-vladimir-putin-path-into-ukraine/

[45] Kate Duffy, “Germans told to stop whining, wear 2 sweaters and have candles and flashlights ready in case of blackouts this winter,” Business Insider, October 12^th, 2022, https://www.businessinsider.com/german-politician-stop-whining-wear-sweaters-candles-blackouts-energy-crisis-2022-10