When a driver comes to the Netherlands from Germany, he has to step on the brakes.

Since last year, a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour has been in effect on the motorways of the neighboring country to the west during the day.

It's only 130 at night.

In Germany, whose economy, unlike the Dutch one, thrives on building big, heavy and fast cars, no majority in the Bundestag has yet come about in favor of a general speed limit.

It can be guessed that the mobility shift towards autonomously driving electric cars with two-tonne SUVs that drive 220 cannot be mastered.

Free ride?

It is true that the Union parliamentary group in particular ensures that free travel for free citizens remains for the time being. But barely two months before the federal elections, the Greens don't fly a flag either. In their immediate climate protection program, they put the demand for Tempo 130 into the sixth sub-item of the fifth chapter, although they have calculated that a speed limit could save as much CO2 as the entire domestic German air traffic generates. The project couldn't be better for an immediate program. It can be implemented immediately, without great expense and without technical effort. But so far the Greens have acted as if the speed limit was not a priority for them.

Although the first chapter of the detailed program of the Greens for the federal election states that the changes required in the name of climate policy are an “imposition” for many people, the eco-party, which is hungry for power, does not want to say that too loudly. In the immediate program, the demand for the end of the registration of cars with combustion engines from 2030, which is in the extensive election program, is completely absent.

Almost all parties have understood that the fight against climate change is the big topic of this election campaign.

It is not surprising that the Greens are making a particularly extensive programmatic contribution;

no party is as connected to this question as they are.

But even in the CDU program there is a reference to the end of the internal combustion engine.

However, the Christian Democrats are hiding behind the “German automobile manufacturers”, more and more of whom have announced that they will forego the use of internal combustion engines.

The "switch to emission-free mobility" is to be made "attractive for everyone" and a timetable is being presented.

It doesn't get any more specific.

Lifestyle without a future?

As different as the accents of the CDU and the Greens on the field of climate protection are, the two parties have one thing in common: They want to convey the impression that the fight against climate change can essentially be won with financial and technical changes, for example with the instrument of CO2 - Pricing or the expansion of wind power and solar power systems.

But the courage to tell citizens openly that their lifestyle, even if only in part, may have no future is sought in vain. The fear of being a spoilsport or - worse still - of being someone who wants to rob people of their freedom and tell them how to live is obviously too great. Politics does this all the time. It is not only in the pandemic that people have been and are being told in detail how they should live. The setting of tax rates through political decisions is ultimately nothing more than a - often severe - impairment of human freedom, because a considerable part of the wages for his work is not allowed to be used for himself.

It is not surprising that the CDU as a people's party is cautious here. But the more likely it is that the Greens will become an important part of the next federal government, the more tempting the sweet grapes of power (even if perhaps not of the Chancellery) hang before them, the more they try to hide the fact that the all-round fight against Climate change also means a change in people's lives. But that is part of the truth.

The second major issue of climate change besides the speed limit is meat consumption. In 2013, when the average of the polls was below ten percent shortly before the federal elections and were not nearly as hungry for government as they are today, they demanded that meat should not be offered in public canteens once a week. This was a perfect template for other parties to accuse the Greens of interfering too much in people's lives. The party has learned a lesson from this. The current immediate program on climate protection states that in order to make agriculture “climate-friendly”, fewer animals would have to be kept. Motto: Don't alienate the voters.