Water Levels from the Desert - Why Friedrich Merz Is Not a Chancellor for the 21st Century

When Friedrich Merz talks about climate, he sounds a bit like an insurance agent trying to downplay hail damage by pointing out that the sun will probably shine tomorrow. On Wednesday, the chancellor faced questions in the Bundestag - and said a sentence that belongs in the annals of political evasion: “Even if we were climate-neutral tomorrow, not a single natural disaster would happen less.” It was the kind of sentence that at first sounds like a rational assessment - and on second glance like a cold slap in the face to anyone currently wading through the floodwaters in Texas or seeking shelter in a burning forest in Thuringia. Merz, who likes to speak of “leading through responsibility” in other contexts, calmly told the world: our efforts aren’t worth it. After all, what are two percent of global CO₂ emissions, if achieving neutrality means risking the “deindustrialization” of our economy? One might call this realism. Or cynicism. Or the political confession of a man so tightly bound to the present moment that he sees the future only as a burden. Someone who speaks like this doesn’t view climate policy as a duty, but as a calculation. And someone who thinks like that might be a good accountant. But not a chancellor for a country standing in the middle of a century of tipping points.

Because what Merz is really saying - and to be fair, he says it clearly - is this: we’ll only commit to climate protection if it pays off immediately. If it causes no pain. And if we can write it down as a credit on our export balance sheet. That kind of thinking has a name: balance-sheet nationalism. It only values ecology when it benefits the economy, and it forgets the obvious: the climate does not care about shareholder preferences. It is no coincidence that Merz, in responding to the flood disaster in Texas, expressed no sympathy, but instead used it as proof that German climate neutrality has no effect. The victims were not the focus - the supposed futility of action was. It is a rhetoric that does not lead, but shields. A chancellorship of the skeptical shrug. Yet the historic task has never been clearer: Germany, the land of engineers, could lead by example - technologically, diplomatically, morally. Instead, we are getting Friedrich Merz, a technocrat of inertia, someone who prefers to calculate rather than act, to relativize rather than inspire. A man who would rather compute the cost of climate neutrality - than ask what inaction might cost.

And when, in a fleeting sense of international obligation, a half-hearted commitment to the Paris climate goals is added on top, it feels like a reluctant glance at the clock while arriving late to your own wedding. You want to be there - just not first. Perhaps someone should remind the chancellor that climate protection is not a national ego project, but a collective effort to ensure survival. That it is not about whether a flood in Texas “happens because of us,” but whether we, as a wealthy industrialized nation, are willing to do our part - especially because others might not be able to. Anyone who doesn’t understand that, doesn’t understand the 21st century. And so the question remains: who is actually governing here? A reformer? A statesman? Or just the last representative of a fossil era, who believes climate neutrality is primarily a PR risk? When Friedrich Merz speaks about the future with such verbal coldness, one must worry not only about the Earth. But also about the chancellorship.