You can already use trains in a large scale: most larger European cities are well connected and have extensive local transport systems. Next the public sector will invest a lot of money into electrical busses and their infrastructure. E-Bikes are already very popular. Cars will take a few more years...

Merkel's government had ambitious goals, but industry and public was not ready - without substantial financial incentives, which would have been another problem.

Many people commute by train from the "suburbs" or the smaller cities sprinkled around the larger cities, partly because it's convenient, partly because traffic is really bad in major cities.

This is particularly relevant in the European context, where most cities were not built for cars and now cannot be significantly altered.

And why should we? (as in: I consider car-friendly cities a bug, not a feature)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country

China is saving nuclear power too:

https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...

[0] https://energy-charts.de/power_inst.htm?year=all&period=annu... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_Photovoltaics_Insta...

You wanted to say China, didn't you.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-china-is-domi...

>The timeline of China’s rise began in the late 1990s when Germany, overwhelmed by the domestic response to a government incentive program to promote rooftop solar panels, provided the capital, technology and experts to lure China into making solar panels to meet the German demand.

>China, according to Chung, had “dabbled” in solar energy only as a source of electricity to help impoverished rural areas remote from its power grid. But then some of its pioneering companies became intrigued by the income that manufacturing solar panels for export to Germany might bring in.

>China then decided to follow Germany’s lead again, developing its own “feed-in tariff” that paid handsome prices for electricity generated by rooftop solar. The result was a surge in domestic demand for solar.

By PV Watt per capita Germany is still number one by a large margin at 511 (Japan is second with 336, China is at 56).

But, of course, it's a bit like fusion power: should be achievable in principle, but the details are infuriatingly difficult.

It's a relatively less evil, for now. We still haven't found a good way of dealing with old batteries and it's a huge environmental problem.