Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor who
is constantly in the line of verbal fire over his role on Nord Stream’s board,
has opened a new front. He’s criticizing Volkswagen for having decided to
replace workers’ currywurst with vegetarian fare. The decision by VW, which has
for years made millions of sausages for its workers and the wider public, may
seem random. It’s not. Even German automakers, hardly paragons of environmental
virtue, have concluded going greener is imperative.

VW had a good first half of 2021. The number of delivered
cars increased
by 27.9 percent, to around five million, and more than 170,000 of those cars
were electric. Wait a second: 170,000 out of five million isn’t very much,
especially considering that Tesla’s cars are selling extremely well despite
their hefty price tag, and most especially considering that Chinese automakers
are — aided by cheap government loans — quickly establishing
themselves on the market.

But for German carmakers including VW, going greener is
important not just for competition reasons. In its sixth assessment report,
released this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that unless countries
sharply reduce their CO2 emissions, limiting the global warming increase to 1.5
degrees or even two degrees Celsius will be impossible. And unless everyone —
governments, businesses, and indeed citizens — does their part, there’s clearly
no hope of reaching the 2 percent target, let alone the 1.5 percent one.

VW had taken stock of its emissions long before the IPCC
report and concluded there were steps it could take beyond transitioning to
more electric cars. This month it announced to its workers that some of its
factory canteens would go
vegetarian. That’s a more crucial step than it may seem, because meat and
dairy are the single most CO2-emitting activity of human life. Together, they
account for 14.5
percent of current CO2 emissions.

A carmaker going vegetarian thus makes perfect sense —
especially if the carmaker is also a sausagemaker, as is the case with VW. Since
1973, VW’s own butchery has made currywurst, a staple of German cuisine that
has also become synonymous with VW canteens. While the sausages were initially
made for the company’s workers, they soon became so popular that they’re sold
in supermarkets as well. Indeed, VW now often produces more sausages than cars:
in 2019, for example, seven
million sausages versus 6.3 million cars.

But now the iconic currywurst will disappear from some of
the canteens. Schröder, who as prime minister of Lower Saxony (where VW is
headquartered) served on VW’s board, didn’t take kindly to the announcement. “No
currywurst on principle? No” he lamented in a post
on LinkedIn. “The currywurst is a power bar for skilled manufacturing workers,
and it should remain that way,” he added, creating the hashtag
#rettetdieCurrywurst (save the currywurst).

Schröder has hit on a central dilemma of modernity: If the
planet is to be saved, current lifestyles, especially in highly developed
economies, have to radically change. As of a couple of years ago, I am myself a
vegetarian; a small contribution to this effort. But while office workers can
easily switch to vegetarian fare, manual workers need heartier meals than those
who type on keyboards for a living. Why should they be told they can no longer
have their currywurst for lunch?

The point is this: Everyone knows change is urgent and unavoidable. But who should change? Individual efforts are laudable, and the number of vegetarians and vegans is rising across the West. But the world also needs an overarching strategy, or otherwise many people, companies, and indeed countries will be reluctant to do their part; they may even consider doing so foolish. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that China alone emits 27 percent of the world’s greenhouse gasses. Why should I stop eating currywurst when China emits such mindboggling quantities of the dangerous gasses? people will ask. That’s why COP26, which takes place in Glasgow this November, is crucial. Acta non verba, one might say.

The post Gerhard Schröder, Volkswagen currywurst, and clash of modernity and climate change appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.