(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel lost her lead over the Greens in a nationwide poll a week after her a much-heralded proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions was knocked as too timid even by many of her supporters.
While the Greens climbed three points to 27%, Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc slid a point to the same level, according to the poll published by broadcaster ZDF on Friday. The Social Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition partner, fell 2 points to 13%, falling behind the far-right Alternative for Germany, which gained a point to 14%.
The majority of Germans consider the $60 billion climate package, which includes a carbon-pricing mechanism, taxes on airline tickets and reductions on train travel, as insufficient to meet the country’s goals to slash carbon-dioxide emissions.
The proposal had been billed as an opportunity for Merkel to showcase renewed leadership and breathe life into a coalition that had been troubled by infighting and poor approval ratings since she said in December she wouldn’t run for another term in 2021.
Officials in Merkel’s government said this week that the measures will likely be upgraded, including doubling the price of CO2 emissions from heating and transport from 10 euros a ton.
The price that Merkel’s coalition could pay for a lack of ambition on the issue is high, with 59% of Germans seeing climate change as the country’s most pressing issue, showed the poll carried out by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen.
It surveyed 1,325 people on Sept. 24-26 and had a margin of error of as much as 3 percentage points.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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