This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Joseph Sternberg, editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

He's in London. He writes political economics about the German government, the coalition government under Oloff Schultz, falling because of the prohibitive cost of green, because the budget must be balanced.

It cannot go into debt off books green.

What this means about the public in Germany and the public throughout Europe,

ready to endorse green, but will they pay for it?

Or will it be paid for by their government taking risks, cutbacks?

The answer, Joe Sternberg identifies the answer here is to be

determined, but more of this tonight. Well, I think people do still seem to be very deeply

convinced that something needs to be done about climate change. The problem is that they

don't want to be the ones to do it, and they also don't want to have to pay whoever is going

to do it. So I think that that's becoming the key issue in the way the German public, and indeed a lot of European electorate

seem to be thinking about these issues. And, you know, that's an important political development,

too, because the conceit from eco-parties like the German Greens and other advocates of strong

action on climate change.

The political conceit here was always that reducing carbon emissions is something that someone,

somewhere else, does.

But now the costs keep coming closer and closer to home, and we're discovering that voters

have very little tolerance for that.

I think that that is going to be a key fact about European politics in the next few years.