SPIEGEL: Mr. Flasbarth, as the president-elect of Germany's Federal Environment Agency, you will more or less be the government's highest-ranking climate conservationist. Can the collapse of the environment still be prevented?

Jochen Flasbarth: If that weren't the case, I wouldn't be sitting here. Germany has a chance to serve as a model. In a show of strength, the grand coalition (ed's note: Germany's grand coalition is made up of its center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPD, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, or CDU) made a decision to lower carbon dioxide emissions in Germany by 40 percent before 2020 in comparison with 1990 figures.

SPIEGEL: Is that a realistic target?

Flasbarth: The steps already taken will only suffice for a 35 percent reduction, so the incoming government needs to put together a new climate package immediately. And since we have to assume that some of the current measures will prove ineffective, we need a buffer to make sure that we can reach our goals by 2020. New climate legislation should include a further 10 percent reduction in CO2.

SPIEGEL: How do you see this happening?

Flasbarth: We have to think seriously about the condition of buildings, agriculture and, above all, traffic.

SPIEGEL: Are you trying to make yourself unpopular by calling for a speed limit on the autobahn?

Flasbarth: People say that you can't impose a speed limit because it will upset driving fanatics. But then you have to consider where else we can cut down CO2 emissions in the transport sector. Our cars are heavy and gas-guzzling because they're designed not to go out of control at speeds of 180 kilometers per hour (112 mph). That increases consumption, even if you are not speeding. We need to direct ourselves toward a program of building lighter vehicles that are both efficient and stylish.

SPIEGEL: The automobile industry now wants to focus its efforts on producing electric cars .

Flasbarth: That's not enough. If you bought an electric car now and recharged it at night, you'd essentially have a nuclear car. At the moment, nuclear energy has a significant role to play in generating electricity. But if the power suppy could be built so that tomorrow's electricity came from renewable energy sources and cars took in surplus wind energy at night, it'd be a huge step forward.

SPIEGEL: Still, they're planning to have one million electric cars on the road by 2020.

Flasbarth: We need to re-evaluate our entire transport system. In the Federal Traffic Route Plan, which details how the transport infrastructure will be developed, there is precious little mention of climate protection. The balance between public and private transportation is all wrong. After the election, we need a new transport plan that will explicitly prioritize public transport, and we need to abandon some of our highway construction projects.

SPIEGEL: But don't you think that will lead to loud complaints from economists, who think that such a plan would threaten prosperity?

Flasbarth: As an economist, I find it pretty remarkable that the people who are used to calling conservationists like me ignorant about the economy are the same people whose greed led to the loss of millions of jobs across the world, while there are more and more jobs in the environmental sector.

SPIEGEL: What are your ultimate goals with climate protection?

Flasbarth: A CO2-free Germany by 2050 is a project that I am hoping to push forward with the help of the scientific experts at the Federal Environmental Agency. We hope to show German politicians how they can make this part of their plan for the future.

SPIEGEL: Does nuclear power have a role to play in this?

Flasbarth: No. When it comes to nuclear power, I take the same stance as my predecessor, Andreas Troge, even if he is in the CDU, while I belong to the SPD. For the first time ever, the nuclear phase-out has gotten to the point where it can freely focus on the energy of the future rather than just the next anti-nuclear demonstration.

SPIEGEL: Is there any future for coal?

Flasbarth: That is currently the most important political decision surrounding energy. As soon after the election as possible, there needs to be a national dialogue on coal between politicians, economists, scientists, environmental organizations and unions. Our experts at the Federal Environmental Agency have calculated that, by 2020, there will be no need to build new coal-fired power stations.

SPIEGEL: But wouldn't that mean that older, less efficient coal-fired power stations would be kept in service longer?

Flasbarth: If you build new plants, they will continue to be used for decades and could stand in the way of building sustainable energy supplies.

SPIEGEL: Environmental organizations are also opposed to the underground storage of CO2, a technique that is supposed to make coal-fired power stations cleaner. Do you agree with them?

Flasbarth: Those who compare such repositories with nuclear dumpsters are exaggerating things wildly. When you see how other countries rely on coal, you realize how risky it would be to completely condemn CO2 disposal. When it comes to coal, very few countries have the same know-how as we do. So we have a responsibility to test it out on an industrial scale. But how much we use this technique in Germany is a question that needs to be raised in the dialogue on coal.