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The Trials of Robert Harbeck is the world's most powerful green politician

doomed to fail by Philip Ultaman.

This summer, when I visited him in his office in Berlin, the most powerful green politician in

the world was at a low point. It was the last day of the parliamentary term and Robert Harbeck,

Germany's vice-chancellor, was running half an hour late. When he finally arrived,

he pretend collapsed as he entered the room, dragging his satchel behind him like a frustrated

teenager. When I asked him how his day had been, he excelled theatrically and quoted the opening

line of the Boomtown Rats song I Don't Like Mondays. The silicon chip inside her head

gets switched to overload. Harbeck leads Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate

Action, and earlier that afternoon, one of his core pieces of legislation had been due to be

passed by Parliament. It would have obliged public authorities, data centres and businesses

to periodically audit their energy use and reduce heat waste. That the opposition had managed

to scupper the vote, and now Harbeck was heading into the summer recess empty handed.

Harbeck wants the world's fourth largest economy to be a global leader in renewable energy,

but virtually every new climate measure that he has launched this year has quickly become bogged

down. The most vital of these was a law mandating that from 2024, all newly installed heating

systems must use a minimum of 65% renewable energy. About half of Germany's 41 million households

...