Germany's election is around the corner and climate was already a pivotal issue.
Good morning. David Meyer here in Berlin, filling in for Alan.
The flooding that has struck western Germany and neighboring countries is not normal. Yes, catastrophic flooding does happen sometimes, but for it to come in summer like this—two months of rain in two days—is bizarre. Yet here it is, claiming at least 103 lives in Germany alone. Hundreds are still unaccounted for.
There’s consensus here that climate change is partly responsible: higher temperatures make for heavier, more erratic rainstorms. And while Germany is thankfully not a country where climate science is seriously politicized, this event comes at a time when the electorate must make a huge political decision about the implications of that science.
The country will elect its first post-Merkel chancellor in a couple months’ time. There are only two serious candidates: the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock, who was briefly the front-runner before being hit by plagiarism claims, and Armin Laschet of Merkel’s center-right CDU party, who is keen to cast himself as the continuity candidate—and who, as the state premier of deluged North Rhine-Westphalia, is right in the thick of this week’s catastrophe.
The CDU-led government has made genuine progress on the climate front during Merkel’s 16-year tenure, with policies such as the world-leading Energiewende, or energy-transition plan. But the government is often accused of being in thrall to Big Auto (at least, before Dieselgate), and Germany’s own constitutional court recently ordered the government to boost its targets for the sake of future generations. This year’s CDU manifesto is vague on climate, and Laschet himself is far from bullish on the subject; four years ago he notoriously limited the spread of renewable energy in his heavily industrial state by placing restrictions on wind-turbine installations.
Whether that will be enough to revive Baerbock’s fortunes remains to be seen; the Greens are polling around 18% to the conservatives’ 29%, which is deeply challenging this close to the election. But Germans react decisively to disasters—recall how the Fukushima disaster in Japan killed the German nuclear industry—and this week’s catastrophe could help the argument for voting Green, especially in a country where industrialization has already raised regional temperatures by the 2°C the world is trying to avoid.
Whether or not Germans do opt for the Greens and their greater sense of urgency on the climate issue, the floods also join this year’s North American heat disasters in highlighting another fact: our challenge is not just one of limiting future warming, but also one of adapting to changes we see right now.
Meeting these challenges will be incredibly expensive, and there are important debates to be had about who bears the cost. The EU’s new green plan, which will expand carbon pricing within and beyond the union’s borders, is already being fiercely contested over its implications for consumers (and Germany’s choice of chancellor will likely have a big effect as that debate progresses.)
But we can already see grim previews of the alternative right now, and “expensive” doesn’t begin to cover it.
More news below, and don’t forget, nominations for Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 list close Monday.
David Meyer
@superglaze
david.meyer@fortune.com
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This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
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