Germany has a long tradition of taking environmentalism seriously. They practically invented it, when a political party of The Greens (Die Grünen) has been established by several politicians, including Petra Kelly, Rudi Dutschke and Joseph Beuys in 1979, when they first participated in the local elections.

The Green party

The Green party has started from the group of left-wing environmentalists who formed a political party in the mid-1970s. The party gathered around two influential figures - former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn Bendit, a leader of the student rebel in France in 1968. and today a co-president of European Greens - European Free Alliance at the European Parliament. Joschka Fischer, a former foreign minister and a taxi driver was once a part of the Putzgruppe or literally the 'cleaning mob' which attacked several police officers in the squatter battles during 1970s. The picture of Fischer beating the policeman Rainer Marx haunted him during his career until he apologized publicly. In 2005 he withdrew from the politics. The Greens remain the main guardians of environment and have a huge influence on the habits of Germans who now recycle, carry cloth shopping bags and ride bicycles instead of using the public transport. German green ideology was best shown during the 1990s when the Greenpeace Germany tried to stop the transport of nuclear waste in North Rhine - Westphalia and Lower Saxony. During the period between 1998 and 2005, the Greens had an important role in the German government, especially when deciding about cutting down the carbon emissions or closing up the nuclear plants. According to plans of the government, nuclear power plants should be closed by 2020. The Greens still have a steady support of the German people. Their actions of preventing huge ecological disasters like, for instance, Shell trying to ditch an oil platform into the North Sea, made them very popular and brought them a huge support of German voters.

Sustainable energy resources

Germans are trying to produce energy in a way that won't harm the environment. Huge wind turbines dominate the environment of northern Germany, and according to the latest count, there are around 16.000 of them placed all over Germany. Germany is the main producer of wind energy in the world, producing between 32% and 40% of the total production of wind energy in the world. However, for Germany it's only 6% of the total electricity production, but the government expect this share to increase to 12,5% and at the moment enormous wind farms are being built on the Schleswig Holstein coast. About 5000 turbines will be placed in the sea, 47 kilometers away from the coast. Alternative energy sources are still examined by the government, such as the solar power, geothermal energy, biomass and hydroelectricity. Huge solar plants are built near Regensburg in Bavaria and produce enough electricity for around 4000 people. Searching for sustainable energy resources was encouraged after the government's decision from 2001 to close up the nuclear power plants. The plan is to shut all of them (19 in total) by 2020 and to reduce carbon emission by 40%. The idea was to close every nuclear power plant on its 32nd birthday but, after the change of government and lobbying of nuclear industry to postpone the process, the shutdown of the power plants is now questionable.

Garbage bin in Germany

Germany and environment

Until 2006 Germany was very successful in reducing the river pollution and acid rains and cutting down carbon-dioxide emissions. After the new carbon-emission quotas for industry were introduced to German public, Angela Merkel's government has been accused by the environmentalists for not following the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. This was a huge step back after a period from 1987 to 2000 when Germany achieved a huge success with the Rhine Action Program and managed to recover the environment there so well that the salmons and sea trouts were noticed in the Upper Rhine for the first time after 50 years. It was extraordinary accomplishment of the area where 15% of the world's chemical industry is located at the riverbanks. Another environmental project taking place in Germany is the Action Plan High Water whose main target is to restore the river banks and prevent huge damages made by floods. The target is to carry out this project by 2020.

In 2002. the government decided to impose an ecological tax on diesel, petrol, natural gas, heating oil and electricity. The same year it committed to reduce the green-house gas emissions by 21% in the period between 2008 and 2012. and by 2004 the emissions were already reduced by 17.5%. The change of the government brought changes in the taxes on greenhouse gas emissions - the industry was obliged to cut the emissions by only 0.6%, while new laws even allowed many business free carbon emissions and slowed down the reduction which was going on till then. Although the German government claims they're still on the way to achieve the Kyoto targets, EU and other international communities have shown a great concern about the whole issue. Despite the changes in government's control of the gas emissions, Germans are a very environmental friendly nation. They're Europe's biggest recyclers, with every household having a separate garbage bin for each kind of waste - bio bin or Biomüll is where the biodegradable waste is thrown - food leftovers, garden waste, vegetable peelings, used tea bags and coffee granules. Paper bin (Papier) is where you'll throw waxed cardboard, regular cardboard, recyclable paper and teabag paper tags. Your glass waste will go in the separate, Glas bin, while a Grüne Punkt bin is where you'll throw most of the food packages, tins, cans etc. Everything else goes to the Restmüll bin. Bins at the airport and train station have four categories: Papier (paper), Verpackung (packages), Glas (glass) and Restmüll (other waste). Germans produce 10 kg of waste per person daily. You'll have to pay a refundable deposit (a Pfand) for everything packed in glass or plastic bottles or cans and you'll get it back after you return the bottle. Many Germans wait to collect a bag full of bottles and then to return them.

The German Green Party was a part of the coalition government that ruled the country from 1998 to 2008; the party won 8.1% of the votes in the 2005 federal elections

Preservation

There are 90 nature parks, 13 reserves and 14 national parks in Germany, but in spite of these impressive numbers less than 1% of Germany's territory is under comprehensive protection (this percentage is within the European average). It could be argued that, politically, Germany is one of the "greenest" countries in the world. The German Green Party is the most successful green party in the world and between 1998 and 2005 the party participated in the national coalition government greatly influencing the environmental policy of the Bundesrepublik. In the last federal elections in 2005 the party won 8.1% of the votes securing thus 51 seats in the Bundestag. Although this represents a 0.5% decrease if compared to the previous federal elections, the Greens enjoy a wider support in Germany than any other country in the world. The presence of such a party in the parliament has ensured that Germany builds one of the most environmentally conscious societies. The country is a signatory of Kyoto Protocol and in only 14 years (between 1990 and 2004) it has managed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 17.5%. However, with the new, more conservative government headed by Angela Merkel, the enviable environmental progress has been halted as the Government imposed a marginal reduction requirements (0.6%) for industry in the period from 2008 and 2012. The cooling of German enthusiasm when it comes to environmental issues will, no doubt, have negative effects on the way the necessity to tackle this issue is viewed all around Europe.

Per capita, the Germans produce 10kg of rubbish a day, but most of the waste is carefully recycled. The country is Eruope's biggest recycler and the recycling methods devised in Germany have been adopted in many other developed countries which are trying to clean up the mess that the industrialization and consumerism have left. Apart from being a recycling champion, Germany is also the world's leading producer of wind energy. In 2008 the country satisfied more than 10% of its energy needs from this renewable source of energy. In 2001, the left-wing coalition (including the Greens) which ruled the country, decided to shut all nuclear energy plants by 2020. At the moment there are 17 nuclear plants left, two of them having been dismantled since 2001, but the ambitious plan to phase them all out in less than two decades will probably have to be abandoned in favour of a more realistic schedule. Other much exploited renewable sources of energy in Germany is solar energy. The town of Regensburg in the state of Bavaria boasts world's largest solar plant. Apart from these two main renewable sources, the Government is investing into the exploration of other potential sources of energy such as hydroelectricity and biomass. Since 2006 there has been much talk about the possibilities of hydrogen-powered economy which would become increasingly independent of oil. That year the City of Berlin introduced the first hydrogen-powered buses into the city's bus fleet. The hydrogen-fueled vehicles don't pollute the environment and their engines run almost soundlessly reducing thus the noise level in the city. Although it remains a costly project at the time being, hydrogen-powered public transport is thought to have a promising future.