Motorists are moaning about the rapidly increasing prices at the petrol pumps and charging stations. The owners of an electric car can at least improve their cash register with a CO2 certificate.
The promise sounds almost too good to be true: “Earn money with the electric car”.
Anyone who searches the Internet these days for the monstrous word “greenhouse gas reduction quota” or “GHG quota” for short will come across countless advertisements that promise owners of an electric vehicle a bonus of over 300 euros a year. The money should flow quickly and unbureaucratically without having to work for it. All you have to do is own a battery-powered car or a larger electric scooter and be able to present a valid vehicle registration document.
In contrast to the state purchase premiums for e-cars, which are currently being examined by the federal government, the GHG premiums do not come from tax revenue, but from the mineral oil industry. The GHG quota obliges mineral oil companies to reduce their CO2 emissions from year to year. And if they can’t do it on their own, they have to pay.
The starting point for the CO2 calculations are the values from 2010. In the current year, emissions must be seven percent lower, and in 2030 they must be 25 percent lower. In order to meet the quota, the corporations have so far mainly added biofuel to conventional fuel – up to ten percent for petrol in Germany (E10) and up to seven percent for diesel (B7).
However, with mandatory reduction quotas that increase every year, Aral, Shell and Co. are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid paying fines with just biofuel. One way out: The corporations can buy pollution rights from clean actors in order to meet the legal requirements, at least on paper. They pass the costs on: In the end, those who are still driving with an internal combustion engine have to pay.
Trading in CO2 certificates was previously reserved for companies. In Germany, energy suppliers in particular benefited from the compensation payments. With a comparatively high proportion of renewable energies in the German electricity mix, they remain well below the permitted pollution limits and can sell the CO2 saved to the mineral oil companies as an emission certificate.
Since the beginning of 2022, private individuals have also been allowed to get involved in this business in Germany. So that the Federal Environment Agency does not have to deal with countless individual applications, intermediaries come into play who bundle the forms for CO2 reduction and then have them checked as a package in order to then offer them on the market. Nevertheless, there is currently a backlog of applications at the authority, so that the owners of the vehicles have to be patient. In addition to the classic electricity suppliers and mobility providers, around 40 start-up companies such as Emobia, Klima-Quote.de or Fairnergy collect the GHG quotas and transfer up to 350 euros a year per vehicle to the owners of an electric car.
ADAC welcomes the regulation
Only plug-in hybrids are excluded because they can also be fueled with fossil fuel. But even electrically powered mopeds and e-motorcycles that have a large license plate and drive faster than 45 kilometers per hour can make full use of the GHG quota.
The ADAC welcomes this regulation: “From the consumer’s point of view, it is positive that the additional crediting of electricity promotes competition for cost-efficient greenhouse gas reductions for energy in the transport sector,” explained the automobile club, which is also active as a GHG service provider.
The GHG quota for electric cars is seen in a more differentiated way by environmental protection associations. “It’s not harmful, but unfortunately it doesn’t do enough to promote climate protection,” says Tobias Austrup, a mobility expert at Greenpeace. “Around 300 euros is too measly an incentive to switch to electromobility.” The state purchase premium alone is 20 times as large. “I would have to drive this electric car for 20 years to receive comparable funding. So it doesn’t do that much.”
“New registration tax for cars with high fuel consumption”
Greenpeace calls for other instruments for a rapid conversion of mobility. “A new registration tax for cars with high fuel consumption would bring significant progress. Experience from the Netherlands shows this, for example, where 20,000 euros or more are sometimes due when you buy or register a particularly climate-damaging combustion engine for the first time. » That made the car fleet there much more climate-friendly.
The regulation should actually motivate the mineral oil companies to change, says Austrup. “With the GHG quota, however, they don’t have to fundamentally change their business model. Today they should deal with the question of how they want to earn their money if mineral oil products can no longer be sold for climate reasons. The GHG quota does not generate this transformation pressure. It’s more of a classic ransom.”
These arguments also catch on with some advocates of electromobility, who could themselves benefit from certificate trading. Representing the THG skeptics is the popular Youtuber Oliver Krüger, who uses three electric cars in his company. Krüger believes that the GHG premium for an electric car owner has no effect on climate change. “Anyone who buys an e-car does not do it for 300 euros or a little more, which you can collect here at short notice,” says the managing director of the Hamburg company 163 degrees, which offers solutions for the conversion to climate-neutral energy.
Ultimately, the system only serves to let the mineral oil industry appear in a green robe, says Krüger. “The corporations can mathematically reduce their carbon footprint without actually having done anything to stop climate change.” Krüger therefore wants to refrain from submitting his GHG quotas and the associated money.
Greenpreace expert Austrup, on the other hand, advises every electric car driver to take this bonus with them, despite all their concerns. “Otherwise, the quota will revert to the state. And at some point they will be auctioned off. So the mineral companies will get to this quota one way or another.”