This story has even made it into the Anglophone press, so you know it's a big deal: "German transport minister warns of weekend driving ban," says The Telegraph. "German minister threatens 'indefinite driving bans' on weekends," proclaims Politico. "German transport minister under fire for weekend driving ban threat," declares Reuters.

Volker Wissing does not really want to ban driving.

But no, despite the headlines, they are not going to take away our cars.

Amazingly, not even the Greens want to do that. For once the story is not about German authoritarianism, or woke insanity or anything like that.

Rather, it's about how nobody can really bring himself to care about the climate anymore – not even our forward-thinking, progressively minded, environmentally responsible political establishment.

For the backstory, we must go all the way back to the pre-Covid era, when aggressive climate legislation was popular even with centre-right CDU voters, and before the electorate had a taste of what Green policies like the draconian home heating ordinances really feel like on the ground.

Back in those halcyon days, when the child saint Greta Thunberg was cutting class to save the earth, Angela Merkel's government passed the Climate Protection Act. The law mandates a 65% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2030, an 88% reduction by 2040, and an utterly unrealisable carbon neutrality by 2045. In the near term, the Climate Protection Act also establishes maximum annual emissions levels for various economic sectors. Should a given sector exceed its maximum, the responsible Ministry must submit an ominous "action programme" to bring things back on target.