Stephen Milder Stephen Milder is a lecturer on modern history at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich. He is currently writing a history of climate politics.

The Myth of Green Germany | Energiewende Runs Out of Fuel

Stephen Milder

In May 2015, after a weeklong visit to Berlin, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called Germany a “Green Superpower” that “deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.” The Germans, he argued, had made a “great contribution to the stability of our planet and its climate” by “converting almost 30 percent of their electric grid to renewable energy.” Friedman was not alone in singing the praises of Germany’s Energiewende, or its...