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Climate researchers recommend higher CO₂ prices

2021-06-06T00:25:20.140Z


The climate election campaign has a hot topic: How far should gasoline prices and heating costs rise? And how can the citizens best be relieved? A study that is available to SPIEGEL provides answers.


Enlarge image

Does refueling have to be more expensive?

This is being discussed heatedly in the election campaign

Photo: Patrick Pleul / picture alliance / dpa

Olaf Scholz was combative: "Whoever turns the fuel price screw more and more now shows how indifferent he is to the needs of the citizens," thundered the SPD candidate for chancellor in the "Bild".

In this respect, "a higher CO₂ price does not mean more climate protection," he said, but only "causes frustration at the petrol station".

The election campaign is approaching and the parties are discussing the new social issue of climate policy.

How much must carbon prices be increased in the fight against global warming?

And how will the Germans be relieved in return?

Should commuters be favored and tenants spared?

Or is it best to simply pass the income from the higher CO₂ prices back to the citizens?

Some social equalization benefits rather the upper classes

A study by the Mercator Institute for Climate Change and Global Commons (MCC) that is available to SPIEGEL now gives a statistically supported answer to the new class question in the country.

The researchers have calculated to the nearest euro and cents how the concepts of the parties would influence the household budgets of Germans.

And what they found out should "correct some errors about the social effects of CO₂ pricing," says MCC boss Ottmar Edenhofer. According to the analysis, some of what is known as low-income aid in politics is more of benefit to the upper classes. And city dwellers also benefit from some measures to protect the rural population.

What the climate researchers clearly confirm, on the other hand, is the long-held suspicion that higher CO₂ prices in themselves have highly undesirable distribution consequences. A climate surcharge of 50 euros, for example, as will be levied in a few years according to the government plans, costs German households on average between 120 and 350 euros per year. A range that, however, has very different effects in the social structure of the republic. While middle income groups have to spend up to 0.9 percent of their consumption budget on higher gasoline or heating costs, the affluent third of the population incur significantly lower burdens.

The social gap would be even greater if the CO₂ price were to be increased to the mark of more than one hundred euros demanded by climate protectors. Then, according to the study, "the additional burden could hardly be communicated politically".

According to the MCC researchers, it is all the more necessary for the state to provide social compensation. However, they give very different marks to the measures that are currently being discussed in the parties. The fact that commuters can deduct a larger part of their travel expenses from tax, as the black-red cabinet decided last year, can therefore hardly eliminate the imbalance, the study shows. According to this, the higher commuter flat-rate reduces the climate costs for citizens by an average of only 25 euros per year and also has a greater impact on the upper levels of the income scale than on the lower levels.

In addition, the measure does little to compensate for the climate load between urban and rural areas.

The study shows that many commuters live in metropolises, and so the reform is reducing travel costs for urban and rural households to almost the same extent.

For 23 euros a year in the city, 29 euros in the village.

The effects of the proposal, which is currently controversial in the coalition, to charge half of the heating costs to the landlords are similarly minor.

Because a good half of Germans live in their own four walls, the measure only relieves households by an average of seven euros per year.

The study shows that the proposal also makes little contribution to a more equitable distribution of the climate burden between low and high earners.

In contrast, the Union's concept of lowering electricity costs and, for example, eliminating the surcharge for renewable energies (EEG), brings better results.

If the next government were to initiate a corresponding reform, this would completely offset the costs of a CO₂ price of 50 euros in many low-income households.

Wealthy people, on the other hand, would have to pay up to 150 euros more annually.

The concepts of the Greens and FDP get the best grades

The most effective measure to level the climate between rich and poor has precisely those parties in the program that have so far not had a reputation for being particularly socially oriented, according to the study. If the government were to reimburse all citizens of their income from the higher CO₂ prices in the same amount as the Greens as "energy money" and the FDP under the name of "climate dividend", the lower and middle classes would receive financial benefits of up to Enter one hundred euros annually. Wealthy people, on the other hand, would have to raise up to an additional one hundred euros a year.

If climate change is to succeed, MCC boss Edenhofer believes that higher CO₂ prices are inevitable. And as far as the issue of distribution is concerned, he also has a clear recommendation to politicians: "From a social point of view, it would be best to first lower the EEG surcharge to offset rising CO₂ prices," he says. "In later stages, the CO₂ price should be reimbursed to the citizens as fully as possible."

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-06-06

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