Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of political parties. In fact, it has been asserted that the only major political
party that was not in support was the Liberal party (FDP). 87 Furthermore,
as the summary of the evolution of wind power development in Germany
illustrated, not only did the political support base hold together when utili-
ties and communities began to contest wind power projects, a prevalent tail-
wind ideology engendered entrenched support. 88
With that said, wind power developments are implemented at regional
if not municipal levels; accordingly, national political consensus to support
wind power development is not necessarily suicient to guarantee the type
of success that Germany has enjoyed. his is particularly true when one rec-
ognizes that Germany is a federal nation, and as such its states hold consid-
erable sway over land-use. As opposed to Canada, which is a federal nation
that has seen wind power difusion undermined by lack of provincial cohe-
siveness, 89 German state policy was largely aligned with federal wind power
development policy.
Recently, some of the states that host higher levels of wind power installa-
tion have purportedly begun to tighten clearance decrees for wind turbines. 90
However, state-level support is largely sustained by broad public support for
wind power. herefore, as long as NIMBY opposition can be held in check
through some of the methods described in this chapter, it is probable that
both national and state-level support for wind power will continue.
5.6.2 Governing Party Ideology
Interestingly, although diferent governing coalitions have come and gone
since the evolution of Germany's wind power program in the early 1990s, each
successive ruling coalition harbored varied and unique justiications for sup-
porting wind power development. In the early 1990s, the nation was governed
by a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU)
coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. he CDU-CSU coalition embraced a
social market economy platform that viewed the technological and vocational
skills of Germany's workforce as central to economic development and sought
out initiatives to support economic development in rural West Germany and in
comparatively impoverished East Germany. Wind power development proved
to be a natural it with this vision. Supporting the creation and maintenance
of wind systems was compatible with national competencies in engineering,
equipment manufacturing and precision instrument design.
In 1998, Kohl's coalition was toppled by a Social Democratic Party (SPD)-
Green Party alliance. he importance of the Green Party in keeping the
SPD in power engendered economic development policy that favored clean
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