I started this talking about nuclear policy only, but I wrote more on all the issues I have with German environmental policy. I'm gone lay out a case on why German is a negative player in the global movement against climate change.
Their removal of perfectly well functioning nuclear plants that could have run for another 50 years is nothing less then criminal, Ill talk more of that later. Their strong anti-nuclear position influenced the countries around them to also get ride of their perfectly well functioning nuclear plants.
Belgium for example turned of a perfectly well functioning plant in the middle of the energy crisis. Switzerland stopped investing in its own energy production because Germany would just produce so much cheap energy that can easily be imported, yeah great policy.
Even France had been persuaded that nuclear is bad and in 2015 they basically also followed Germany and tried to do a nuclear phase out far earlier then technically possible. All in blind trust that they can just replace 20+ nuclear plants with a few solar panels. They also forced the potential profit of the utility (from nuclear) to be reinvented into solar (not to mention forcing them to support fossil as well).
All nations around Germany have to breath the coal ash that Germany distributes over all off Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Eastern France. And have done so for decades and it has measurable effect on air quality and health in all those places. Somehow Switzerland (where I'm from) doesn't get coal ash from France, funny how that works.
France on the other hand has had clean energy for 40 years. Even home heating in France is usually done with electric. Its baffling to me that people see Germany as this great success, when their coal plants are still going strong and will be for another 10 years at least. Housing in Germany is still often oil and gas as well.
Anti-nuclear people love to just ignore the last 50 years of coal use in Germany and have for over 30 years insisted that nuclear is to expensive and slow, despite the evidence from France that you can change a economy to nuclear in 20 years and having paid very little for it. Don't believe people who claims France has high taxes because of nuclear, that is nonsense.
Its countries with the cleanest energy use the most nuclear, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Finland. Some countries with a lot of wind do decently well but also build a lot of gas capacity so it isn't as cheap as people claim.
Just look at the electricity map right now:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
611 gCO₂eq/kWh right now, France 28. And that is with all the idiotic anti-nuclear policy France has adopted in the last 20 years. Germany currently has almost 25 GW of coal on the network, and only 2.7 GW nuclear. At peak, Germany had enough nuclear capacity to replace all the coal use they have today, but they made the choice to shut down all nuclear before all coal, and this was widely supported by Greens and environmentalists.
How anybody can call this a success, because they invested in some solar panel production is beyond me. Germany played itself up as the environmental savoir nation in the international press, everybody around the world tried to 'be like Germany'. And yet, France had literally already achieved more then Germany decades earlier but of course that was never mentioned anywhere.
I'm genuinely baffled why people are so positive about Germany. They have been selling themselves as this green nation for decades. But reality this is not supported by any evidence what so ever.
They didn't do very much to get away from oil and gas heating. Their strongest industry is the car industry, and they are backwards in terms of the new green urbanism. Their high speed rail network is still patchy, sub-optimally designed and incredibly delay prone. 'Die Bahn' the German railway operator is generally regressive in its European policies, opposing many major European rail reforms. The Autobahn high speed is polluting. Their car makers are currently trying to prevent the adoption of laws EU laws that push EVs.
They had international obligation and agreements to increase cargo rail transport North-South in Europe. A real all electric rail cargo highway, from North Sea ports all the way to Italy. Switzerland build the longest rail tunnel in the world and everything else. Even f*ing Italy build its part of this project. Germany, mmmhh, maybe they will do it next decade. Well I guess at least the Autobahn will be used for more diesel trucks instead, thanks Germany.
I can't think of a single area of environmental policy where Germany is actually leading. Germany is everything that is bad with the environmental policy. Its a success of marketing over results. 3rd world nations around the world should not look to Germany, they should look to France (in the 70/80, not so much lately) for electricity, to Netherlands for urban policy, Switzerland for public transport.