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Even more tellingly, the Greens were in government between 1998 and 2005, as the junior partner in Gerhard Schröder’s coalition. Under the leadership of Joschka Fischer, the party had a major say in decisions to cut carbon emissions and to wind down the nuclear industry. Although some of these policies are already being reversed under the new, more conservative ‘grand coalition’ government of CDU/CSU and SPD under Chancellor Angela Merkel, individual Germans’ commitment to green issues remains solid.

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Energy

Travelling across Germany, one can’t help but be struck by the number of giant wind turbines dotting the landscape, especially in the windswept north. You start to wonder just how many there are. Well, there were more than 23,000 in 2008 – the second-largest number of wind farms in one country after the United States.

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Consisting mainly of firs and pines, the Black Forest derives its name from the dark appearance of these conifers, especially when seen from the hillsides.

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While other countries debate its pros and cons, Germany has long embraced this technology. It’s the world’s leading producer of wind energy, accounting for between 38% and 42% of entire global capacity in 2008 (depending on whose figures you believe). According to the GWEC (Global Wind Energy Council), wind turbines currently provide roughly 7.5% of German electricity. Four states proudly boast that more than a third of their energy is fuelled by wind power: Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg. Additionally, one of the world’s largest wind turbines is being built in Northern Germany.

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NATIONAL PARKS

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The federal government also backs research into other alternative energy sources, with some €40 million invested in geothermal energy, solar power, hydroelectricity and biomass projects. One of the world’s largest solar plants, Waldpolenz Solar Park, is currently being built on a former military base near Leipzig; when completed in 2010, it is expected to produce about 40MHz of electricity per year. All these initiatives mean Germany is well on track to achieving its target of using 30% renewable electricity by 2020.

The current pre-eminence of renewable energies partly derives from the country’s decision in 2001 to shut down its nuclear industry. That year, the so-called red-green government (with red representing Schröder’s centre-left SPD party) developed a timetable to phase out all 19 of its nuclear energy plants by 2020. But these reactors provide a third of the country’s energy needs, and the government was attempting simultaneously to reduce its carbon-emission levels by 40% from 1990 levels, so it massively stepped up investment in alternative energies.

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For comprehensive details of national parks and hot links to their websites, surf www.germany-tourism.de.

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Each of the 19 nuclear reactors was to be shut down on its 32nd birthday, and the first to go was Stade (outside Hamburg) in November 2003. However, by 2007, with only two other reactors decommissioned, there was a change of government in Berlin and, seemingly, a change of heart. Critics were warning of an energy crisis and in 2006 the nuclear industry was lobbying environment minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) to postpone the closures by some five to eight years. Although a staunch nuclear opponent himself, Gabriel admitted to news magazine Der Spiegel that not everyone in the grand-coalition government shared his views. In 2008, German chancellor Angela Merkel and the CDU/CSU opted to launch opposition to the planned closures, discarding a compromise proposed by the SPD to postpone the shutdown while endorsing a constitutional ban on new plants. The SPD continues to oppose nuclear power, but with Angela Merkel’s re-election in 2009 (Click here), it is expected that her government will aim to reverse the proposed plan to shut down the 17 remaining nuclear-power