Climate Minister Habeck's plan to soon ban new oil and gas heating systems overwhelms citizens.
Above all, the threat of being forced to convert old heating systems does not seem feasible.
A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.
The best thing about Habeck's plan to introduce a ban on new oil and gas heating systems and to quickly convert existing systems is that it will not come into force in this form.
This climate policy with the crowbar is too expensive, too little open to technology and, especially for many tenants, too antisocial for the FDP – and actually the SPD too – to agree to it.
There is not enough for the Greens to avert the climate apocalypse
As if there had never been a "turn of the era", real wage losses and an explosion in housing prices, Robert Habeck is speeding up the energy renovation of buildings.
There has long been CO2 emissions trading, which makes the consumption of oil and gas less attractive and provides homeowners with incentives to convert to be climate-friendly.
This is already happening on a large scale.
Heat pumps are already installed in almost every second new building - with the unfortunately serious flaw that most of them are operated with dirty coal power.
But that's another topic.
But there is not enough for the Greens to avert the climate apocalypse.
That is why more and more bans and regulations are being saddled on.
The intervention in the existing building is particularly problematic: more than half of the oil and gas heating systems in Germany are more than 20 years old.
But after 30 years of operation, it should now have to be converted.
According to the City and Municipal Council, replacing millions of boilers within a few years is likely to fail due to the lack of skilled workers, not to mention the high costs of easily several tens of thousands of euros per system.
No new billions in state subsidies, which the minister wants to throw around despite tight public coffers, will help, so that the stressed-out citizens don't revolt.
The steering effects of climate policy are too drastic to be left to utopians.
The state must not overtax its citizens.
Otherwise it will frustrate the many who are already making an effort to make their contribution to climate change.
The green climate minister is once again in the process of getting lost.
George Anastasiadis
