Or could it be precisely the opposite in fact? Decades of Merkellian short-sightedness and complacency that led to an over-dependence on Russian gas and chronic underinvestment in it's own capacity?
I do not see how wind and solar could have helped alone.
It needs other electricity sources in order to function, so that's either coal, gas, or nuclear.
The greens ruled out nuclear and coal. What does that leave?
I hope you can see the ridiculousness of the German Greens, when even Greta is saying that they should not close down any nuclear plants lol
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1579844923423326210
Which is great, but it remains the fact that the countries sliding into recession just happen to be ones with an unusually high level of gas dependence. Which in Germany's case are the result of long term bad policy making and underinvestment that you can't really blame on an environmental movement or political party that wasn't actually in power during this time. Or indeed, and energy transition that beyond the nuclear shut down, wasn't actually happening.
(and even here, an actually sufficient level solar and wind; plus nuclear, hydroelectric, gas imports from places that
aren't Russia would all have contributed to reducing Germany's exposure. As would have all the other policies like sufficient investment its digital and physical infrastructure, in developing hydrogen power, in whatever. These are all the failings of decades of bad policy, of things that people have been calling bad policy for decades and that you can't just solve in 12 months like that)
It is not exactly a secret that Germany has spent the last two decades both kneecapping its own economy through deficit-aversion driven underinvestment and by putting all its eggs in the basket that was Russian Gas at a time where everyone knew that it had to both reduce carbon emissions and that its chief energy supplier was being led by an increasingly volatile dictator. So to merely turn around now and say "oh this is the fault of the energy transition" just isn't honest. It's an attempt to hide from what the real causes have been.
