What kept Merkel from being a climate chancellor?

The year is 1994. Angela Merkel, a 40-year-old trained physicist, becomes German environment minister. She is instrumental in paving the way for the Kyoto Protocol that, in 1997, is signed by most countries around the world — as the first real effort by the international community to tackle the climate crisis.

What happened in the years that followed? Merkel became German Chancellor in 2005, and has since had a number of opportunities to throw her weight behind climate policy goals and measures, internationally and at home. But she couldn't deliver as much as would have been necessary, Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute of Economic Research, tells podcast host Nina Haase.

Claudia Kemfert is a leading expert in the field of energy economics and climate research. She has been the head of the Department Energy, Transportation, Environment at the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW Berlin) since 2004.