After a long dispute in the traffic light coalition, the federal cabinet has launched a reform of the climate protection law. Mandatory specifications for economic sectors and their CO2 emissions will be removed again.
The Climate Protection Act has been in force in Germany for more than three and a half years – now the federal cabinet has approved a reform of the regulations. The planned changes had long been the subject of heated debates within the traffic light coalition.
The Greens in particular would have liked to leave the climate protection law as it is. In its previous version, it makes precise specifications as to how many greenhouse gases must be saved per year in individual sectors such as industry, transport or buildings. With the reform of the traffic light coalition, the permissible total amount of climate-damaging emissions should be decisive in the future – which should enable more flexible handling.
If, for example, too many greenhouse gases are emitted in traffic, this can be offset by increased savings, for example in industry. However, the specifications for the total permissible quantity remain unchanged.
Less pressure on ministries
Most recently, the CO2 savings targets were missed for heating and, above all, for transport. According to the previous legal situation, the responsible ministries should have presented emergency programs by the middle of next month – with measures to close the gaps as quickly as possible. However, these emergency programs will no longer apply as a result of the reform. And that is primarily in the interests of Transport Minister Volker Wissing. “We cannot reduce these CO2 emissions in the short term because we have to be mobile,” said the FDP politician recently SWR-Interview. “In this respect, we have a problem in the mobility sector.”
Wissing likes to emphasize that he is counting on the long-term effects of technological change in car traffic. Away from combustion engines towards electric cars powered by green electricity. It will simply be a few more years before this has a significant impact on the CO2 balance of transport. CO2 savings in other sectors are easier to achieve for the time being. Critics, on the other hand, accuse Wissing of blocking things.
How can the climate targets be achieved?
With the Climate Protection Act, two approaches meet. The question is how the self-imposed German goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 can best be achieved.
On the one hand there are environmental organizations and actually also the Greens. From their point of view, CO2 savings cannot be achieved without annual, mandatory specifications. The reform waters this down, criticizes Martin Kaiser from Greenpeace Germany. “Our main criticism is that this means that the legal liability for the individual sectors is undermined. And Mr. Wissing essentially gets a license to do nothing for his transport policy.”
According to Kaiser, “very specific immediate measures” are needed that must be introduced and implemented as mandatory. “Otherwise we won’t be able to achieve the transformation in the next seven years, which the Climate Protection Act stipulates.”
Long-term transition taking place instant programs
Representatives of the second approach open the cost-benefit analysis. They stress that year-by-year sector targets could have led to activism and inefficient policies that incur high costs but bring little benefit. It has to be less about immediate programs and more about the long-term technical changeover.
Economic researcher Karen Pittel from the Ifo Institute in Munich argues that climate protection measures sometimes only have a slow effect after their introduction, but then develop very quickly: “If I make adjustments after a year, I run the risk of intervening in a system that works in and of itself – and then does more harm than good.”
As an example, Pittel cites the planned switch to green hydrogen in the steel and cement industries. “At the moment the market has to start up. But then it can happen very quickly. And that’s not reflected in the specified annual emissions.”
More flexibility
With the reform of the climate protection law, the traffic light now follows the second approach, which is also the rule in other countries with climate protection laws. For example, the laws in Great Britain, Finland and Sweden formulate the overall savings to be achieved by 2030 or 2050, for example, but leave a lot of flexibility on the way there. Yearly, legally binding sector targets are not common.
However, all states face the same challenge: How can the specific goals actually be achieved and what measures will contribute to meeting the target figures?
28 pages of climate protection
The new climate protection program summarizes the measures that have been decided or planned for the various sectors on 28 pages. From the significantly accelerated expansion of renewable energies to the charging station infrastructure and climate-friendly animal husbandry. Much of this has long been decided. New additions are the controversial building energy law and a CO2 surcharge on the truck toll, which is intended to improve the climate balance in the transport sector.
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck says that the measures can close 70 or 80 percent of the “climate gap” inherited from the grand coalition. “Through the measures we have taken, the gap has not become zero,” says Habeck. “But for the first time it has become possible to meet the climate protection goals.”
Example heating law
However, when asked, Habeck’s Ministry of Economic Affairs found it difficult to prove the minister’s forecast. It is still being calculated and some only give estimates, it is said. So far it has not been possible to specifically predict how, for example, the CO2 surcharge on the truck toll or the heating law will ultimately affect the CO2 balance. Especially since both laws still have to be fine-tuned in the Bundestag.
This is a basic dilemma of all climate protection laws: model calculations can be made for the future. But the development cannot really be predicted. And in the past few weeks, the coalition has had to learn from the heating law how controversial it can be to translate target figures into real politics. Many people are probably closer to their own heating in the basement than columns of figures in the Climate Protection Act.
Within the coalition, there is also little desire in the Chancellor’s Party SPD to enact far-reaching measures, for example for road traffic, in a hurry. Although the transport sector has by far the largest climate gap. The new climate protection law will leave more room for pragmatism – but it does not replace concrete CO2 savings.
With information from Martin Polansky, ARD capital studio