Expectations have been raised that a decisive point may have been reached in German, and therefore European, energy policy — a moment at which the rhetorical commitment to a low-carbon future is transformed into reality.

Just before the summer, the German government established a task force to lay out a plan for the elimination of coal from the country’s energy mix and to report by the end of the year.

In both practical and symbolic terms, the elimination of coal in Germany would transform the energy outlook across Europe. The targets for dramatic reductions in emissions — the EU energy commissioner Miguel Arias Ca?ete recently proposed extending the targets to a cut of 45 per cent from a 1990 baseline by 2030 — would begin to be taken seriously.