By Tom Armitage BERLIN, March 28 (Reuters) - Germany's environment minister is riding a wave of enthusiasm for climate protection measures that have propelled him from relative obscurity to the forefront of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. In the year and a half since Merkel forged an alliance between her conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD), SPD minister Sigmar Gabriel has raised his profile and some commentators say he could be a future SPD chancellor candidate. As environment minister, the down-to-earth native of industrial Lower Saxony has stood up to Merkel, clashed with her Christian Democrat (CDU) Economy Minister Michael Glos and adopted an orphaned baby polar bear as an environmental mascot. In doing so, he has carved out a niche in Merkel's left-right coalition and strengthened the profile of the SPD as it struggles to redefine itself after losing the 2005 election. "The SPD has a personnel problem," said Frank Decker, a professor of politics at Bonn University. "There are few skilled politicians in the party who are good at appealing to the media and Gabriel is one of them. He also has the good fortune that environmental policies are back on the agenda and that means that he's back in the public eye." Gabriel may seem an unlikely champion for environmental issues, having held a role in the previous government as minister for popular culture and been state premier of Lower Saxony, home to the car-building giant Volkswagen. But Gabriel has been quick to see the appeal of climate change to voters. He wants to focus on pro-business environmental policies likely to appeal to those employed by Germany's export-oriented manufacturing industry. "Climate policies must be successful without being a burden on economic growth and the living standards of voters," said Decker. "This is Gabriel's theory and it's a theory that is designed to win maximum voter support." A former ally of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the 47-year-old Gabriel has clearly acquired some of the older man's skills, including a populist style and media talent. The German-language version of Vanity Fair published a five-page profile of the minister in its first edition. Most significantly, analysts say, he has acquired a key Schroeder adviser, Matthias Machnig, who ran Schroeder's 2002 election campaign in which he came from behind to regain power. In a similar fashion, and in a manner still unusual for straight-laced German politicians, the environment minister last week cashed in on the media furore surrounding an orphaned polar bear at a Berlin zoo by adopting the animal.
