Rainer Baake

Rainer Baake (2014)

Rainer Baake (born August 15, 1955 in Witten ) is a German politician ( Greens ). He is considered an expert in climate and energy issues.

Baake has worked as a full-time politician for the Greens in environmental administration since 1985 . From 1998 to 2005, Baake was State Secretary in the then Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety under Jürgen Trittin . From 2006 to 2012 he was federal manager of the environmental and consumer protection association Deutsche Umwelthilfe and director of the Agora Energiewende initiative , which was launched at the beginning of 2012 by the Mercator Foundation and the European Climate Foundation . In January 2014 he was reappointed by Sigmar Gabriel ( SPD ) as permanent state secretary for energy in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy , in the grand coalition . On March 5, 2018, Baake submitted his resignation as State Secretary. Rainer Baake is the director of the Climate Neutrality Foundation .

Life

After graduating from high school, Rainer Baake worked as a community organizer in Chicago from 1974 to 1978 . He then studied economics in Marburg in the early 1980s and became a graduate economist.

In 1983, Baake joined the Greens and, according to his own statements, was the first Green to take over a full-time electoral office: after the conclusion of coalition negotiations between the SPD and the Greens, the district council of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district elected Baake as first district member and deputy of the district administrator . He was among other responsibilities as environmental department head .

Rainer Baake was State Secretary in the then Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Federal Affairs (1991 to October 28, 1998, see Cabinet Eichel I and II ) under Joschka Fischer . Together with Fischer, he shut down the Hanau nuclear power plant and discussed the safety of the Biblis nuclear power plant with RWE . Baake developed strategies to promote renewable energies and to increase energy efficiency.

After Fischer switched to federal politics, Baake stayed in Hesse. In preparation for the 1998 Bundestag election, a plan to end the use of atomic energy in Germany was developed under his direction.

From 1998 he was State Secretary under Jürgen Trittin in the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety . There he negotiated the nuclear phase-out law of 2002 (see nuclear phase-out ). During the seven years of his tenure in the Federal Environment Ministry, funding programs and laws to expand renewable energies were created, emissions trading was introduced and a climate protection program was developed. Rainer Baake is considered to be one of the pioneers of renewable energies , especially photovoltaics - he is often referred to as the “manager of the energy transition ”. Together with Trittin, Baake conducted the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the German government .

In 2006, Deutsche Umwelthilfe e. V. Rainer Baake together with Jürgen Resch on their federal managing director; both were also managing directors of DUH Umwelt-Service GmbH.

After Chancellor Angela Merkel had promised a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases in Germany by 2020 (compared to 1990), Baake pointed out the contradiction in terms of building a new generation of coal-fired power plants supported by Angela Merkel. Under Baake's leadership, Deutsche Umwelthilfe therefore helped citizens' initiatives, local politicians and state governments in disputes against new coal-fired power plants. At the same time, Baake called for an expansion of the network infrastructure, because he considered this to be a key issue for the further development of renewable energies.

In the summer of 2008, the incumbent Prime Minister Roland Koch , CDU , appointed Baake as an honorary advisor to the sustainability advisory board of the Hessian state government.

In September 2008, under Baake's leadership, on behalf of the federal board of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, an “interim balance sheet for nuclear phase-out and proposals for action” was drawn up.

In October 2013, Baake presented a concept for a reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act , which was developed as part of Agora (EEG 2.0), where among other things he advocates the more cost-effective generation of electricity using wind energy on land and solar electricity compared to the more expensive variant Prefer offshore wind.

On March 5, 2018, Baake submitted his resignation as State Secretary. According to his own statements, he did not want to support climate policy in the new coalition agreement ( the grand coalition ). A few days earlier, the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer had called for Baake to be replaced.

In July 2010 Rainer Baake became director of the Climate Neutrality Foundation .

literature

• Baake, R. (Head) et al .: Interim balance sheet nuclear phase-out and proposals for action. (PDF; 175 kB) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , October 1, 2008, p. 36 , accessed on November 18, 2008 . 
• Rainer Baake and Patrick Graichen (responsible): A radically simplified EEG 2.0 and a comprehensive market design process. Concept for a two-stage process 2014-2017. (PDF; 1.0 MB) October 9, 2013, accessed on February 11, 2014 . 

Web links

Commons : Rainer Baake  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Energy transition, yes and now? ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), 24-minute conversation (MP3; 11.7 MB) in Environment and Development on Sunday, March 4, 2012 in hr-info
• Interview with Baake as Agora boss on NWZ-Online about a reform of the Renewable Energies Act, EEG of October 13, 2013
• Michael Bauchmüller: Future State Secretary Baake Gabriels Grüner - Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 16, 2013
• archived curriculum vitae at the Federal Ministry of Economics
• Malte Kreutzfeldt : Green expert on climate policy: "The climate crisis is huge". In: The daily newspaper . July 19, 2020 (interview with Rainer Baake). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Agora Energiewende - Thinking about the Energiewende together, topic cluster and press release ( memento from February 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) from the Mercator Foundation on February 13, 2012 , Agora Energiewende, European Climate Foundation
2. ^ Rainer Baake, curriculum vitae on the website of the Federal Ministry of Economics ( memento from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Bodo Ganswindt: Left alone by the federal government. In: Upper Hessian Press . May 2, 2011, accessed December 15, 2013 . 
4. ↑ SolarServer ( Memento from December 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 15, 2013.
5. ↑ oekonews.at: World Bank to strengthen the financing of decentralized renewable energies , from September 17, 2005, accessed on December 15, 2013.
6. ↑ (tol): Lobbying from Radolfzell. In: Südkurier . May 10, 2010, accessed February 11, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Federal Office and DUH Environment Service GmbH. Deutsche Umwelthilfe , archived from the original on November 8, 2008 ; Retrieved November 17, 2008 . 
8. ↑ for various information from the entire text: Mail from Rainer Baake dated October 30, 2008, see the discussion page of this article
9. ↑ Climate expert resigns as State Secretary , Deutschlandfunk, March 5, 2018
10. ↑ Saxony's Prime Minister calls for Baake , Energie & Management to be replaced, February 27, 2018
11. ↑ Malte Kreutzfeldt: Green expert on climate policy: "The climate crisis is huge" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . July 19, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed July 20, 2020]).
12. ↑ Climate Neutrality Foundation. Retrieved July 20, 2020 .