I'm not sure what point you're trying to make? Obviously there's a longer history behind the nuclear power opposition (the bit on the Sierra Club in Freakonomics ep 516 is quite interesting), but Fukushima was the trigger that caused the CDU to cave (and Japan's LDP to reverse course). More to the point, they can restart their reactors to both dramatically cut CO2 emissions and to reduce reliance on foreign fossil fuels with minimal lead time.

Excellent points. Germany (and Japan) are different though because they're sitting on many perfectly functional nuclear plants that used to supply much of their electricity until people freaked out about Fukushima and governments replaced it cheap coal and a mix of other fossil fuels which is obviously awful across the board for everything but cost. Germany and Japan could easily slash their emissions and gain more energy independence just by turning them back on. It hasn't been that long either, so they still have much of the needed expertise.