German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s lectures on environmental responsibility may ring a little hollow when she heads to New York this weekend.
Merkel, who for years has straddled between pushing to reduce global warming while protecting her country’s auto industry, is faced with Volkswagen AG’s emissions-cheating scandal just as she travels to the United Nations to cajole leaders into making binding commitments ahead of a global climate summit in Paris in December.
A day before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that VW admitted to systematically cheating on air pollution tests for years, Merkel lauded the auto industry for its contribution in fighting global warming. Speaking at the International Auto Show in Frankfurt last Thursday, she said initiatives by German automakers such as electric-car technology had offered an “important contribution” to the country’s climate goals.
“I believe those that produce the least emissions in autos will also be those who have the greatest success worldwide,” Merkel said in the speech.
Those ambitions took a hit after the EPA accused Europe’s largest carmaker of outfitting nearly a half million vehicles in the U.S. with software that activates full pollution controls only when a car is being tested for emissions. Beyond the collapse of VW’s stock price and a potential $18 billion in fines, the hit to the reputation of the Wolfsburg, Germany-based carmaker could cast a shadow on Germany’s image as a nation awash in solar panels and wind turbines.
