Tightening of climate protection: goals should be in the cabinet this week, the details will follow later

Enlarge image

Chimneys in Oberhausen

Photo: Lukas Schulze / Getty Images

The good news from the point of view of the governing parties: A coalition committee - in the worst case again until the early hours of the morning - does not seem to be necessary this time. To this end, the wires are currently glowing between the Chancellery, the ministries involved and the chairmen and specialist politicians in the government groups. SPIEGEL told SPIEGEL that they were working flat out on the goal of getting an amended climate protection law through the cabinet on Wednesday.

However, it is likely to be just a slimmed-down package that the coalition is launching under the pressure of the Karlsruhe ruling. Last week the Federal Constitutional Court warned the legislature to tighten climate protection targets. According to SPIEGEL information, the draft should now also contain this - but above all concrete measures and other instruments such as increasing CO2 prices should not yet be included. Corresponding plans, it is said, could be packaged in a protocol statement and decided in the coming weeks.

The new goals for more protection against global warming are formulated in the Climate Protection Act.

In addition - that would be part two - an immediate program is to be described with measures that may not yet be sufficient to meet the new targets, but at least send a signal that the government is not simply formulating ambitions.

This accusation comes mainly from the Fridays for Future movement, the eco-associations and the Greens.

The third part of the last-minute solution could also be increased CO2 prices and a compensation of the green electricity surcharge (the so-called EEG surcharge) through the federal budget or the income from emissions trading.

"We should then have the ambition to go further in the parliamentary procedure," said Union parliamentary group vice Andreas Jung (CDU) to SPIEGEL.

"Higher CO2 prices and lower electricity costs, more renewables and high pressure for hydrogen - we should set the course for this before the election," says Jung.

"Because these are the main building blocks on the way to climate neutrality."

Changes are complicated

This kind of labor economy seems necessary because the changes in the Climate Protection Act are extremely complicated. It is undisputed that by 2030 the climate targets will have to be sharpened from 55 percent less CO2 emissions to 65 percent. It is also clear that climate neutrality should be achieved five years earlier. But what does that mean for the individual areas of traffic, buildings, energy, industry, agriculture and waste management?

The annual specification of the climate targets requires that the burdens are divided between the six areas. According to SPIEGEL information, the Union side wants to distribute the higher amounts of savings primarily to the energy sector and industry. Instead of 175 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, as previously planned, fossil-fuel-fired power plants would only be allowed to emit 108 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2030. That would be a drastic tightening of the savings target and should significantly accelerate the planned phase-out of coal, which will be regulated in a separate law by 2038. But is the SPD involved?

If the Union prevails, there is likely to be resistance, especially from the East - and it was also from the CDU: Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, who had to contest a state election at the beginning of June, had already warned SPIEGEL at the end of last week that to shake the exit schedule.

Haseloff said: "If you want to redefine the climate targets in a generation-appropriate manner, the other CO2-generating areas must therefore also be standardized through area-specific laws." In other words: more should be done with traffic and buildings, but coal mines should not be closed earlier.

Union wants to exclude transport sector more

But the coalition could decide exactly the opposite. The areas of transport and buildings should - at least at the request of the Union - make less contribution to the 2030 target. In the two areas, it is unfortunately not possible to achieve such quick savings, according to the negotiating circles. The higher loads would not set in until the middle of the decade. In 2030, the building sector should then emit 67 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually (originally planned: 70 million tonnes) and the transport sector 85 million tonnes instead of the original 95 million tonnes. At least that is the key figures for the climate targets as they were negotiated over the weekend.

A meeting of state secretaries should bring about an agreement on the exact savings commitments in the course of Monday.

It can be assumed that the various lobby groups will try again to exert influence.

At the end of last week, the Association of the German Auto Industry (VDA) recalled a controversial study by the Ifo Institute from last year, according to which a socially unbalanced, too rapid transformation in the auto industry could endanger 215,000 jobs.