Climate change will feature heavily in Germany’s election

THE FIRST sign of trouble on the Rhine, Europe’s busiest inland waterway, was when the river cruises and hotel ships disappeared. Then the cargo vessels got smaller, or simply stopped sailing; goods like coal were shifted to trains. Water levels fell low enough to expose unexploded wartime bombs. These grim scenes, described by Florian Krekel of the Bingen office of Germany’s Waterways and Shipping Administration, date from autumn 2018, when a long drought so depleted the waters along this scenic part of the Rhine that navigation became near-impossible. Manufacturers on the river had to slash production, exporters were cut off from world markets and petrol stations in Cologne had to raise prices. The disruption shaved 0.2% off German GDP, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Over two-thirds of Germany’s land area was afflicted by the great drought of 2018. Soon afterwards climate change shot up the list of voters’ priorities (see chart). And as its effects, potential or actual, on Germany’s waterways, forests and farms have become harder to ignore, it has remained at or near the top ever since. Germany’s parties, gearing up for an election in late September, are reacting accordingly.