160 FRANK UEKÖTTER
tal policy seemed patently absurd. However, things do not look quite so
clear a few decades down the line.
In the early 1990s, environmental policy entered a new, eminently
transnational orbit. Within a few years, environmental policy moved to-
ward a new international framework. The Single European Act of 1987
expressly granted the European Community (soon to be called the Eu-
ropean Union) a clear mandate for environmental policy. The EU used
its newly gained powers with vigor in the decades that followed, even
going so far as to consider an energy or carbon dioxide tax.^55 The EU’s
environmental achievements include the council directive concerning the
protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from 1991 and
the council directive on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild
fauna and fl ora (known as the Habitats Directive) from 1992. Moreover,
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Biodiversity
Convention were signed in 1992, two treaties that, together with the
Montreal Protocol for the protection of the ozone layer of 1987, defi ne
the framework of global environmental policy to this day. However, these
ambitious initiatives stand in growing contrast to the rather cumbersome
world of real politics in which environmental regulations often seem to
be quite authoritarian. The link between democracy and environmental
protection, which appeared to be self-evident in Germany in 1990, is not
so obvious in current global environmental policy. It would seem that
there are still lessons to be learned from GDR environmental policy in the
twenty-fi rst century.
Civil Societies
It seems rather arbitrary to draw a line between green politics and civil
society in the Federal Republic. The careers of leading politicians such
as Jürgen Trittin and Monika Griefahn, who went from being activists to
ministers, suggest fl uid borders between politics and protest. Particularly
in the 1980s, there was a symbiotic relationship between these two realms.
Environmental organizations and citizens’ initiatives identifi ed problems
and pushed for solutions, while politicians tried their best to follow up
and gain popular acclaim. But this de facto alliance began to crumble in
the years after reunifi cation. In 2000, for example, when the red-green
coalition government made a deal to phase out nuclear energy, it found it-
self facing crowds of angry protesters.^56 Similarly, while civic mobilization
reached new heights in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in
2009, the conference itself proved to be a fi asco in terms of environmental
policy. Renewable energy projects have met resistance from environmen-