The traffic light coalition wants to change a central law in climate protection. But environmental groups are up in arms. The most important points of contention at a glance.
This Friday, the Bundestag will discuss a federal government bill to amend the Climate Protection Act for the first time, after which it will go into parliamentary deliberations. The federal government’s draft envisages abolishing the previously mandatory annual emissions reduction targets for individual economic sectors such as transport or buildings. Instead, the focus should be on forecasts for achieving climate goals overall. Missing targets in one area can be offset against progress in other sectors in the future.
But the reform is highly controversial. Environmental associations are up in arms and the opposition is also expressing sharp criticism. The most important questions and answers:
What is the Climate Protection Act?
With the Federal Climate Protection Act, the climate protection goals in Germany were regulated bindingly for the first time in 2019. Permissible annual emission levels have been set until 2030 for individual sectors such as industry, energy, transport and buildings. The key point is the following mechanism: if sectors fail to meet the targets, the responsible federal government departments must make adjustments in the form of emergency programs – to ensure compliance with emission levels.
Last year, the building and transport sectors exceeded the legal target values. The government presented a general climate protection program so that a “climate gap” in saving greenhouse gases would be reduced – and thus saw the obligation to make additional adjustments in transport and buildings as fulfilled.
What are the German climate goals?
By 2030, Germany wants to emit 65 percent less greenhouse gases than in 1990. According to the Federal Environment Agency, the reduction is currently around 41 percent. According to its own goal, Germany wants to be climate-neutral by 2045, meaning that it will not be able to emit any more greenhouse gases or bind them again.
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What should change now?
According to the federal government’s draft law, compliance with climate targets should no longer be checked retroactively according to the various sectors – but rather looking forward, over several years and across sectors. In the future, the federal government as a whole should decide in which sector and with which measures the permissible total amount of CO2 should be achieved by 2030 – but only if the target is missed two years in a row.
Requirements for reducing emissions in individual specific sectors are to be abolished. According to the draft law, if the annual total emissions are exceeded, projection data will be used for evaluation in the future in order to carry out a “forward-looking view”.
The departments in whose responsibility climate targets are missed still have a “political responsibility,” said Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) in June when presenting the plans. The current law looks good on paper, but in reality it has had too little effect, said Habeck: “No pig has adhered to it.”
How does the traffic light coalition feel about the reform?
The FDP in particular pushed for a reform of the Climate Protection Act during the coalition negotiations in 2021. In return, the Greens ensured that the coal phase-out should be brought forward by eight years to 2030. The FDP has Volker Wissing as the transport minister; transport is one of the climate problem children.
FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in June that the government’s ambition remained high, but that implementation was taking place in a market economy. In the future, climate protection can and should be accelerated where efficiency is greatest. “In this way, we can avert unrealistic requirements in sectors such as mobility and buildings, which would have to lead to drastic interventions in people’s everyday lives.”
In order to meet transport targets, there are many proposals from environmental associations: a general speed limit on German motorways, a reduction in the tax advantages for company cars or a redesign of the commuter allowance – all of which are politically very controversial.
Why are environmental groups up in arms against this?
An alliance of environmental organizations has sharply criticized the planned reform of the climate protection law – and warned against diluting the goals in the fight against global warming. The federal government wants to “abolish the binding sector targets and thus release ministers who are unwilling to act from the obligation to adjust,” explained the Climate Alliance. The alliance of around 150 organizations criticizes the planned deletion of the sector targets as a “weakening of the central and groundbreaking climate policy framework law in Germany”. The federal government is thereby buying Transport Minister Wissing’s freedom from “making his contribution to climate protection,” emphasized the political director of the Climate Alliance Stefanie Langkamp. This is happening “at the expense of future generations and all those who are already suffering from the climate crisis today.”
Instead, the climate activists are calling on the Bundestag to tighten the law so that future governments actually comply with the climate goals. In the future, tangible mechanisms would have to take effect to bring about a reduction in emissions. “This is the only way to prevent governments from flouting the law again and again,” warned Langkamp.
Greenpeace spokesman Thilo Maack said: “Germany is demonstrably lagging behind when it comes to climate protection and this climate protection law wants to slow down the pace further – that must not happen.” The climate crisis is too dangerous to continue to wait out the necessary measures with lengthy reviews. If the house is on fire, you don’t need a thermometer, you need a fire extinguisher.”
Who else expresses criticism?
Criticism also comes from the opposition. The deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Andreas Jung (CDU), has sharply criticized the traffic light coalition’s plans to reform the climate protection law. “This is a step backwards for climate protection,” Jung told the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”. The traffic light guts the climate protection law and thus calls into question the reliability of the path to climate neutrality in 2045.
“The federal government has been violating the Climate Protection Act since last year,” said Jung. “Instead of finally complying with it, it is now being sanded down.” The project is the “climate policy oath of disclosure of the traffic light”. Jung expressed incomprehension that the Greens supported the reform. “If this were a CDU law, the Greens would demonstrate in all market places in the republic,” he said.
The Federal Association of German Industries is also skeptical about the reform. Deputy Managing Director Holger Lösch said that with the amendment to the law, the federal government was once again confirming Germany’s “very ambitious” climate goals. “However, it remains unclear how these goals will be achieved.” The high energy costs are an enormous burden for the industry. “The federal government must quickly find coordinated answers to prevent the impending relocation of investments and production abroad.”