The Greens (déi gréng) held a press conference on Friday morning under the slogan, "Summer is over. The climate crisis is not!", calling for an immediate rethink of the government's approach to climate policy.
They stressed that a more coherent and consistent effort is needed, arguing that the governing coalition of the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) and the Democratic Party (DP) has yet to fully acknowledge the urgency of climate change or the opportunities presented by the energy transition.
According to The Greens, the extreme heat, parched fields, and the smoke from recent wildfires in the High Fens have made it clear that the climate crisis is not a theoretical issue but a harsh reality.
Joëlle Welfring, the outgoing Greens' spokesperson for climate policy, emphasised that even though the consequences of climate change are now visible in daily life, society is not powerless. She insisted that solutions such as renewable energy, heat pumps, and electromobility already exist to address these challenges.
Welfring said that these technologies already exist, they work, and they are becoming more efficient and affordable.
She pointed to how other countries have understood this for some time and are positioning themselves accordingly: six out of 10 electric cars are now produced in China, over half of Norwegian households use heat pumps, and Spain is emerging as a European leader with about 60% of its electricity generated from renewables. Last year alone, nearly 10 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity were added in Spain.
The Greens criticised the CSV-DP government for lacking a clear red line on climate policy. While some measures point in the right direction, they say environmental and climate protection are often unfairly blamed for other societal problems, and certain policies continue to incentivise the use of fossil fuels.
One example highlighted was the fuel discount, which MP Meris Šehović, the future Greens spokesperson for climate policy, rejected as an effective social measure.
Šehović argued that the fuel discount provides almost no real help to those who genuinely need support, amounting to only a few euros per year for lower-income households. Instead, he called for more substantial, targeted assistance, arguing that spreading benefits too thinly means those most in need do not receive enough support.
Looking ahead, The Greens presented three concrete demands: from next year, no more public funds should be channelled into fossil fuel technologies; landlords should receive financial support for energy-efficient renovations, while tenants living in poorly insulated homes should be eligible for higher rent subsidies; and at the European level, they propose introducing a windfall tax on profits in the fossil fuel sector, with the revenue used to accelerate the energy transition and protect vulnerable people from the consequences of climate change.
