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by neuronic 735 days ago
I also understood it this way (native German). In Germany companies want to claim "as much saved CO2" as possible.

> Das Ziel war, möglichst hohe CO₂-Einsparungen in Deutschland geltend zu machen.

The federal authorities knowingly approved the fraudulent UER projects. What's spicy is that the secretary is a green party member.

> Das Umweltbundesamt und die Deutsche Emissionshandelsstelle genehmigten 75 dieser UER-Projekte – fast ausschließlich in China. Und das, obwohl weitere Hinweise dafür sprachen, besser nicht dort zu investieren. Denn China lässt unabhängige Kontrollen im eigenen Land nicht zu. Peking verweigert entsprechenden Prüfer:innen die Einreise.

Also, apparently a simple look at satellite images should have at least caused suspicion when Chinese companies raised the concerns. There is still no reaction from Steffi Lemke.

> Was Rostek mit dem „Durchwinken“ meint, ist die anscheinend unzureichende Prüfung der Bauvorhaben durch das Umweltbundesamt und die Deutsche Emissionshandelsstelle. Über Satellitenbilder wäre einfach zu erkennen gewesen, dass einige der eingereichten chinesischen Vorhaben schon vor dem eigentlichen Baustart existiert haben.

1 comments

Hallo, fellow German here.

> The federal authorities knowingly approved the fraudulent UER projects. What's spicy is that the secretary is a green party member.

I am not under the impression that anyone has illusions about the Green party here. It is evident they are greenwashing and destroying environment (for the climate of course) among other things they supposedly "don't stand for". The reasons they get votes still is likely due to choosing the lesser evil, even if that is also untrue, or conscience. I have seen the sentiment here too, so I have no illusions that this is going to change either no matter what the Green party does.

> Über Satellitenbilder wäre einfach zu erkennen gewesen, dass einige der eingereichten chinesischen Vorhaben schon vor dem eigentlichen Baustart existiert haben.

IANAL, but getting money for projects that existed prior sounds legally actionable as fraud even. Tho the plaintiff would be the government in the end, so it might not happen anyway.

> I am not under the impression that anyone has illusions about the Green party here. It is evident they are greenwashing and destroying environment (for the climate of course) among other things they supposedly "don't stand for".

Sources? Details?

Lots of hate, zero substantiation. The greens are the party that pushed environment protection for decades, long before anyone cared.

The problem they have is they are held to a different standard than other parties for one and secondly their programme is thought to be only about ecology. It has become a national sport in France and germany amongst politicians to blame the greens for environmental measures which are constraining for the average citizen. Even when for example in France they are not even in the government.

In Germany their members are regularly attacked (as in violence) due to the amount of hate other parties generated about them.

It’s really sad, and I think we need a party which is strongly for ecology but not called “the greens”, otherwise it’s too easy for populists to bash them.