When Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced on Monday at SPIEGEL ONLINE that the continued existence of the grand coalition "on far-reaching decisions in climate policy" hang, that meant more serious than one could assume. Because CDU / CSU and SPD are currently wrestling with the basics of climate policy for the next ten years.
And the first drafts show that the three parties are marching in completely different directions. The SPD wants a "socially responsible CO2 price". The Union a market-based certificates trading. So the parties are already disagreeing on the foundation of the law. For weeks, CDU / CSU and SPD have been discussing a national climate protection law in working groups. This should actually be on 20 September and be adopted by the end of the year.
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The SPD does not want an expansion of emissions trading
According to an SPD paper dated 30 August and published in Der SPIEGEL, the Social Democrats are presenting a prize on "pollutants from fossil resources". He should slowly increase "independent of the economy".
A CO2 certificate trade, as it already exists in the EU since 2005 for industry and energy industry, sees the SPD critical. Because in this political control options "lost in favor of market logic," says the SPD draft. "Extending European emissions trading" (ETS) was not an option because the negotiations "obviously took years" and "proved the ETS to be vulnerable to crisis". Concrete figures, such as what the price per ton of CO2 should be, are not in the SPD paper.
The Union has a completely different plan. "We want a cross-sectoral emissions trading," says the CSU draft. Such a trade had already "proven". The CDU also advertises in a separate paper for a "national certificates trading". The CSU is much more detailed: the draft advertises a "price cap" to ensure "planning security and affordability". Everything beyond that should be compensated with "Emission rights through afforestation projects".
Mix of market and regulatory law
On the one hand, the Union swears on the market as the most economic way to save CO2 - but at the same time you want to enforce regulatory order and collect an artificial price cap. The issue of certificates trading is that high prices should ensure that CO2-intensive technologies no longer have a chance. A logic that does not work in existing EU emissions trading.
Because so far there were always too many certificates instead of too few, which dropped the price in the cellar. Therefore, the European Commission had to artificially shortage the supply several times in order to even achieve a minimum effect. So far the problem has been that the price of polluting the atmosphere has been so low that market participants have no real incentive to save CO2. The price cap proposed by the CSU thus protects companies in the event that emissions trading could now really become effective.
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"A maximum price for CO2 is absurd"
"With a maximum price, which is similar to the EU emissions trading, you can not reach the climate goals," says Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). "A maximum price counteracts the instrument and is absurd."
Moreover, the current price for one ton of CO2 in the European emissions trading system is already too low anyway. Climate economists have long been demanding a price of at least 100 euros per ton of CO2, so that market participants really save emissions. This also applies to a certificate trading. There, the current market price is between 26 and 27 euros per ton of CO2.
DIW expert Kemfert is therefore against the market solution: "A tax is easier to introduce, creates transparency and planning security." Building a national emissions trading system would take at least two to three years.
Others see this less critically: "It is important that fossil fuels become more expensive and fast, and that can also be regulated by extending the allowances, if we apply this in Germany," says Ortwin Renn, scientific director of the Potsdam Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research (IASs). However, Renn also warns against a new edition of the ETS: "The European solution takes longer, we can not wait for that."
The SPD wants tax breaks, the CSU easements for motorists
The SPD and EU positions also differ significantly in other respects: The Social Democrats want a "review of energy-specific taxes, levies and levies" because "fossil energies are still comparatively cheap". This means, for example, tax concessions on diesel or heating oil. According to the Federal Environment Agency, billions are lost every year and climate-damaging behavior is rewarded rather than punished.
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The CSU, on the other hand, wants to make motorists better with a higher commuter rate. The CDU is in favor, but wants to create "incentives to switch to public transport or low-emission vehicles. However, the "claim to individual mobility" must remain.
The coalition parties are largely unanimous in what is to be achieved in principle - such as the switch from aircraft to trains, the strengthening of public transport or the energetic refurbishment of buildings. Only on the best way there they have to agree until 20 September.