One wants the speed limit and penalties for the buyers of internal combustion engines, the other considers that for prohibition policy and patronization: Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) and Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer (CSU) are in intimate dislike connected. Even during the negotiations on the climate protection package of the Federal Government Schulze and Scheuer have been scolding. And so it should continue.
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Issue 50/2019
Burned out
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The Ministry of the Environment does not believe that the climate targets for 2030 in the transport sector will be met. According to internal estimates by the Ministry of the Environment, the measures proposed by Scheuer in the context of the latest climate package and approved by the Federal Government only result in a CO2 saving of around 18 million tons per year. In the process, Scheuer has to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in traffic by at least 55 million tons per year so that Germany can achieve its climate goals. The numbers are based on a scientific opinion for the Environmental Department.
As a result, a new dispute between the ministries over the effectiveness of climate change instruments for the transport sector has been announced. Even before the negotiations on the climate package, the SPD politician Schulze and the Union man Scheuer had clashed on this issue. Scheuer then refused to accept a neutral report under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Research. He continues to hold on to this refusal.
In the package of measures of the Minister of Transport, for example, premiums for electric cars, subsidy billions for the railway and for cycle paths are provided. A speed limit or a penalty on the purchase price of fuel-guzzling cars Scheuer had refused. These measures had been proposed by the Federal Environment Ministry subordinate Federal Environment Agency in a study of June, about which the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" has now reported.
The Ministry did not want to comment on the new figures in the in-house report on request. A spokesman said that the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Economic Affairs had commissioned "further assessments" to assess the "overall impact" of the agreed climate change plans - as a result, the projected CO2 saving effect could be even lower.
Scheuer's authority, on the other hand, remains with the self-assessors' verified savings, which should be sufficient to achieve the climate goals.
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