The targets are ambitious: Germany wants to – no, Germany must be climate-neutral by 2045. At the latest! That is the bare minimum if the country wants to make a relevant contribution to slowing global warming. For a time, thousands of young people took to the streets every Friday to urge politicians to finally take appropriate action. Fridays for Future and its fight to save the world was the defining theme in 2019 – until the following year, when the coronavirus pandemic dominated the headlines. And today? The virus is no longer an issue, but young people are rarely marching to demand climate policy changes. Many are frustrated because, although measures have been taken – and above all, promised – they will not be enough to achieve the defined targets.
And where are the students now who made up the majority of climate protesters in 2019? We can safely say where they are not: in the seminar rooms and lecture halls of German universities, studying electrical engineering and information technology. Despite the great career prospects electrical engineers have, enrollment levels have been steadily declining for years. Only 3.5 percent of all high school graduates decide to study electrical engineering, which represents a one-third decline over the last ten years. “This is dramatic and should set off alarm bells,” warns Dr. Michael Schanz, labor market expert at VDE. Today, only around 8,000 students who successfully complete their studies are available to fill roughly 20,000 jobs per year.
Meanwhile, there’s actually a fairly direct relationship between climate change and the drop in student numbers – one that’s perhaps more direct than the young people of Fridays for Future are aware of. Without electrical engineers, there will be no energy transition. Nor will there be a transition to alternative resources, heating sources or decarbonized mobility, since we need experts to develop the key information technology and microelectronic components involved. Assuming we don’t want to achieve climate neutrality based solely on sacrifice and austerity, doing so will only be possible if the necessary technologies are developed and then quickly implemented. However, this cannot happen without the appropriate specialists – as the subject of heat pumps is making painfully evident at the moment.