The energy crisis is forcing Germany to rapidly overhaul its energy policy plans and will make an earlier abandonment of coal by 2030 impossible, according to the Prime Minister of the federal state of Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil. In an interview with the newspaper WirtschaftsWoche a week before the northern coastal state's vote for a new government, the current Social Democrat (SPD) leader said that from a climate perspective “I have a guilty conscience,” but added that more energy production from coal is currently necessary to ensure energy security. “Phasing out coal by 2030 will unfortunately not be achievable,” he argued. Germany's official goal is to phase out coal by 2038 at the latest, but the country's coalition government wants to move that deadline forward to 2030, “ideally.”

High energy prices and the future of Germany's energy system will be the dominant issues in the 9 October election, said Weil, adding that “I have never seen the citizens so depressed.” Rapidly rising energy prices are affecting almost everyone in the country, and “no one can say in all seriousness when the war will end or when prices will start falling again,” he continued. S. Weil, whose state is home to Germany's largest car manufacturer Volkswagen, warned that companies saving energy in the country also carry negative information. “Deindustrialisation is happening in silence. Especially if companies whose parent companies are based abroad reduce production volumes here and ramp them up elsewhere,” he warned.

Lower Saxony is the country's largest producer of wind energy and also owns some of Germany's largest domestic fossil fuel reserves, mainly natural gas in both offshore and onshore deposits, which have largely gone unused in recent decades due to high extraction costs and local opposition to extraction projects. The northern coastal state also plays a vital role in developing Germany's liquefied natural gas (LNG) import infrastructure. S. Weil said that opposition to energy infrastructure projects seems to be diminishing in light of the energy crisis. “Terminals and pipelines are not popular with everyone, but everyone has understood why they are needed,” he claimed, adding that his government recently allowed gas extraction off the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony. However, controversial onshore fracking will remain anathema in the federal state for the foreseeable future, said the SPD state premier. Instead, accelerating the licensing of the liquefied natural gas terminal showed that bureaucracy can be curtailed when necessary, and that should serve as a model for faster expansion of renewable energy, he said.

Currently, the SPD is leading in the polls with 32%, ahead of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), whose main candidate Bernd Althusmann (Bernd Althusmann) has polled 28%. Both parties have been in a coalition since the last election, but the SPD hopes that after the upcoming vote, it will be able to replace the CDU with the Green Party as a coalition partner.