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The continent is literally on fire due to global warming. Europe does not produce any fossil fuels and needs energy independence. It's because politicians dragged their feet for so long on net zero that we are even in this mess in the first place. Better now than never.
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Europe doesn't produce any fossil fuels?
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Europe has a seemingly infinite amount of coal (same as everyone else), but obviously it's not exactly what anyone really wants (gas and even oil is more climate friendly than coal sadly).

North Sea oil and gas are long past its prime, Norwegian supply is already nearly as expensive as LNG shipped from half the world away. The ideal gas station is Siberia, but that is what it is currently.

So, dunno, what's left, the Arctic? Frack the polar bears?

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Russia and Norway do. Most of that is Russia, which other countries in Europe still import from. Germany doesn't directly anymore, but there are indirect routes like through Azerbaijan.
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Effectively. Europe and the UK do, but there isn't much easily accessible left and besides they aren't in the EU. Netherlands has had to close their gas fields. Germany still mines some coal...there are probably a couple of other gas fields etc but the big picture is that Europe is highly dependent on imports.
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Your cause/effect doesn't have all that much truth to it with regards to rail.

German rail has been an under-invested in mess since reunification, it's a long slide not a recent one. They are finally investing the kind of amounts in it they need to, to actually revive it to what it should be. It's going to be a long road to actually get there, of course.

Paywall but a decent read on that note: https://www.ft.com/content/db75e347-b13b-4753-8130-6301bb55c...

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What’s your point in relation to this article?
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While achieving renewable "success", the domestic manufacturing industry has been decimated/made uncompetitive. Great news for China on the green success!
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Perhaps the "uncompetitiveness" (is it with us in the room right now?) is self-inflicted due to lack of ambition and innovations.
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Which is in part the fault of the industry itself! There's a high degree of arrogance in German management. Especially when it comes to China. The German car industry's refusal to go all in on BEV is a prime example how this arrogance lead to losing to the Chinese who now make better cars than Germany. And this wasn't the first time German industry lost to China due to their own arrogance and being stuck in the past. They always treated China as an export market instead of a seriuous competitor. Same with Eastern Europe.

People always blame German politics, but German management is as responsible if not more responsible for the decline. They simply made bad management decisions for decades and they didn't see the future coming.

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Long time ago German car industry's decided that they need not to manufacture the most important component of EVs - batteries in Europe, that they can always buy the cheaply in Asia.

"The world's largest automotive supplier has decided against producing its own battery cells despite calls from EU politicians to do exactly that. Bosch said the investment would probably never pay off."

https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-says-battery-cells-are-too-expen...

The importance of BEV for China goes well beyond long-term concerns for climate change. For China the most important are the immediate geopolitical aspects of BEV. Every Chinese BEV in China is driving using domestic electricity and is not dependent on imported oil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma

"The Malacca dilemma is a strategic vulnerability for the People's Republic of China due to its heavy reliance on the strait of Malacca, a critical maritime choke point connecting the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea."

"The United States is viewed within Chinese strategic analysis as a potential threat to maritime energy flows through the Strait of Malacca. In the event of a conflict, particularly over Taiwan, the United States could interdict oil shipments to China by disrupting maritime routes. China has expressed concern that U.S. naval forces operating near the Strait of Malacca could obstruct critical petroleum shipments, effectively cutting off vital imports. U.S. maritime strategy has included options for restricting China's access to key sea lanes through the use of attack submarines and surface ships."

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"Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
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Even if the entire Germany stopped existing overnight, this would barely make a dent in global carbon emissions and planet destruction rate.
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Okay. What is your solution, then? Except for giving up or downplaying the problem.
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What is your solution to: >German economy is rocketing to the bottom, their industry is dying with thousands of layoffs, closing factories, and complains on energy prices and they can't even maintain their rail and road networks for the first time since forever.

Except for downplaying the problems or saying they have to suffer?

Mine is re-shore all industry so that products are made according to environmental, health & safety standards. Deploy a mix of renewable and also nuclear power.

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> Mine is re-shore all industry

"The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations."

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