Traffic light is struggling – the coalition cannot agree on climate protection

Berlin The top representatives of the SPD, Greens and FDP negotiated in the Chancellery for around 31 hours, spread over three days. The result is a 16-page paper entitled “Modernization Package”.

The Handelsblatt analyzes the most important decisions that the traffic light has agreed on – and which points of contention are unresolved.

With regard to the climate protection law, the traffic light coalition has not yet agreed on what they have actually agreed on. One is now coming “from the planned economy to the market economy,” the liberals rejoiced. “Instead of unrealistic annual goals, the goal of climate neutrality in 2045 will count consistently in the future,” added the FDP. However, the Greens interpret it differently. It was “by no means the case that the sector targets are being abandoned,” it said.

The Climate Protection Act provides annual CO2 upper limits for most sectors relevant to climate protection. If a sector does not meet the targets, the responsible ministry must propose immediate measures. The transport and building sectors regularly miss their targets. However, corrections cannot usually be achieved in the short term. As a result, billions are being spent to at least get closer to the goals. Critics of the law consider this inefficient.

The final paper of the coalition committee now states that in future the federal government will adopt a comprehensive, cross-sectoral climate protection program in the first year of a legislative period in order to ensure that the goals are achieved. The Liberals interpret this in such a way that in the future, as with the federal budget, everyone will be jointly responsible. “We must see ourselves as jointly responsible,” said Transport Minister Volker Wissing, who missed his targets for the second time in a row.

But the Greens dampen this hope. For example, the deficits in transport are much greater than what can be achieved elsewhere by overachieving the goals. The respective ministries remained responsible for achieving their goals. In this respect, “basically nothing has changed” in the Climate Protection Act. However, like the Liberals, economists recognize more flexibility in the agreements of the coalition committee – and welcome this. The economy Veronika Grimm said: “This leads to more efficient climate protection – and thus more of it.”

“It’s a political toad that the Greens have to swallow,” said Düsseldorf economist Jens Südekum. However, he thinks the decision makes sense because CO2 pricing will be expanded anyway, which makes rigid sector boundaries even less sensible. However, Südekum does not consider the resolutions to be particularly revolutionary: “Anyone who had hoped for a big climate boom might have been disappointed.”

Heat transition: many unanswered questions

When it comes to the ban on gas and oil heating, many questions remain unanswered even after the marathon meeting of the traffic light coalition. The controversial draft of the Building Energy Act (GEG) is being revised and is scheduled to be presented in April. Industry hopes that it will be less strict. Dirk Salewski, President of the Federal Association of Free Real Estate and Housing Companies (BFW), said: “The great outcry and criticism of the draft of the Building Energy Act have obviously worked.”

The Building Energy Act (GEG) aims to ensure that from 2024 only heating systems that are operated with at least 65 percent renewable energy can be installed. In fact, this amounts to a ban on pure oil and gas heating. It is unclear whether this date will remain. The date was not directly confirmed in the decision paper.

coalition committee

The party leaders of the coalition parties Lars Klingbeil (SPD, rl), Ricarda Lang (Greens) and Christian Lindner (FDP) are satisfied with themselves.

(Photo: dpa)

The advice that attention should be paid to “technology openness” was well received in business. So far, the plans have mainly been for electrically operated heat pumps. In the future, the operation of heating systems with green and blue hydrogen or biomass should also be possible, announced FDP leader Christian Lindner. Approval for this came from the chairwoman of the economic experts, Monika Schnitzer: “A pragmatic and reasonable solution is also emerging here, depending on the specific design in detail,” she said.

The Greens think opening up to hydrogen-powered heaters is purely cosmetic. The use of hydrogen in the heating sector will remain limited to individual cases, it is said. Electric heat pumps are much more efficient and will prevail.

Planning and acceleration procedures: Hardly any speed

There was no news about the planned funding and support for people replacing their heaters. The decision only says: “The law is designed pragmatically, unreasonable hardship, also for social compensation, is avoided and social aspects are adequately taken into account; also for tenants.” How exactly the support will look like is now to be clarified in the government.

After a long period of resistance, the Greens have now agreed to give priority and speed up the construction of motorways as well as infrastructure projects for the energy transition. The coalition committee supports Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing’s plan to also declare 144 motorway projects to be of “outstanding public interest”. The Greens have the consolation that photovoltaic systems are also to be set up along these routes and that the federal state concerned must agree to the shortened procedure for each project.

However, there are doubts as to whether this legal stipulation will speed up the process. “The goal of halving the duration of the procedure, as stated in the coalition agreement, will not be achieved even with this,” criticized Christiane Kappes, partner at CMS Hasche Sigle. As an administrative lawyer, she has accompanied major projects such as the Fehmarnbelt crossing and the turbo construction of liquid gas terminals on the coast.

The legal regulation of the outstanding public interest for certain rail projects and particularly important federal trunk roads is perhaps “helpful for official weighing decisions and exception checks,” said Kappes. However, the potential for acceleration is limited. “The requirements for the environmental studies” are decisive. Shorter deadlines don’t help, because the requirements still have to be processed correctly. Otherwise there is a risk of problems before the administrative courts. Transport Minister Wissing hopes to at least shorten the court proceedings significantly.

Deutsche Bahn: There is no right of way

“In the area of ​​​​planning acceleration, the resolutions have certainly not been a great success,” admits Green Party politician Lukas Benner. “All in all, it is now all the more important that the federal and state governments finally agree on the pact for planning acceleration in order to tackle the central construction sites of the shortage of staff and digitization together.”

Delayed trains or canceled trains are part of everyday life on the dilapidated rail network. The coalition now wants to rehabilitate this and is making available a further 45 billion euros by 2027 in addition to the 42 billion euros already planned. However, even this number, which the railways placed with Transport Minister Wissing in order to renovate the network by 2027, is more than questionable. The money should come from the truck toll, which is to be almost doubled at the end of the year with a CO2 component of 200 euros per ton.

infrastructure projects

There will also be construction sites at Deutsche Bahn for a long time to come.

(Photo: dpa)

The coalition expects six billion euros from the climate toll per year, five of which will go to Deutsche Bahn. By the end of the legislature, it will initially amount to ten billion euros at most, and 20 billion by 2027. Where the rest comes from is unclear. The toll law also needs to be changed. So far, it says that the revenue from the truck toll “should be used in full for the improvement of the traffic infrastructure for the federal trunk roads”.

Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) had already provided for the extra 200 euros per tonne in his draft for an immediate climate protection program. Transport Minister Wissing, on the other hand, wanted to introduce the climate toll in stages, since the transport industry cannot yet switch to alternative drives given the lack of climate-neutral trucks. The few existing vehicles cost three to ten times as much as a diesel truck. It’s no wonder that Dirk Engelhardt, spokesman for the board of the Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal, speaks of “political hara-kiri”. “Without alternatives to diesel trucks available on the market and without a charging infrastructure, there is no steering effect whatsoever in favor of climate protection. The traffic light only burdens the end user.”

There are doubts as to how serious Transport Minister Wissing is about the fact that the railways will transport twice as many people and a good two-thirds more goods by rail by 2030. Wissing himself refers to the enormous growth in traffic up to 2051.

“If you don’t ensure that this service can be provided, then our potential growth will be reduced,” he says, and therefore insists on investing in new roads: “Because roads are the main mode of transport, it is unthinkable to move towards roads in the future With the electrification of road traffic, the paradigm that shifting traffic to rail is more beneficial to the climate also no longer applies.

Conclusion: copy-paste policy

The decisions of the coalition largely correspond to what the SPD, Greens and FDP have already agreed. Many of the measures can be found word for word in the concepts of the previous government or are copied from the draft for an immediate climate protection program. Climate Minister Habeck presented this in November. Since then he has been arguing about it with Transport Minister Wissing. The reason: All of the measures mentioned – from tax incentives, programs for rail and road, for drives and digitization to investments and mobility plans – are not sufficient to meet the climate targets in the transport sector.

There is not much that is new, at most a long passage on how the government intends to promote the use of synthetic fuels in the future. And so it remains unclear how the transport sector will reduce its emissions from around 150 million tons of carbon dioxide to 85 million tons by 2030 and not repeatedly miss the annual targets from the Climate Protection Act. In this respect, Wissing could benefit from the fact that the sector targets are now being softened and responsibility is being delegated to the entire federal government.

More: Countries are pushing for faster planning and approval processes.

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