I don't need any figures

"I don't need any figures" – Klingbeil defends billion-dollar course for renewable energies

In Berlin, Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil defended the government's course on renewable energies in the Bundestag on May 20, 2026. The trigger was a question from AfD MP Rainer Kraft in the government questioning. Kraft demanded a concrete effect of 100 billion euros of taxpayers' money on the global temperature rise. Klingbeil first referred to studies on individual instruments in the Climate and Transformation Fund. But then he said, "I don't need numbers to know it's right." This brought budget control, energy costs and the burden on taxpayers into focus.

It is pretty obvious that this is Ed Miliband's attitude - "I don't need numbers to know it's right." More generally, it is likely to be a widespread attitude among the governing classes, many of whom don't seem keen on numbers anyway. 

There is a certain nervousness wittering its way through the Net Zero nonsense though, a sense that some numbers could mean something, even something important.

"Do those scruffy sceptics know something we don't? Surely not."