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Congestion: The traffic and building sectors in particular did not fare well
Photo: Gueven Purtul / iStockphoto / Getty Images
Germany missed climate targets in the years 2013 to 2020 - and now has to buy emission rights to compensate for them worth several million euros.
This emerges from a statement from the Ministry of Economics, an exact sum is not mentioned in it.
Specifically, it is about exceeding climate-damaging CO₂ emissions outside of European emissions trading, especially in the transport and building sectors.
On the fringes of a meeting of the European Environment Council, State Secretary Sven Giegold signed contracts with Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the ministry writes.
In total, Germany must acquire more than eleven million emission allowances.
The EU countries have agreed on targets to reduce CO₂ emissions.
Stricter requirements apply to richer countries than to poorer ones.
Those who exceed their targets can transfer emission rights to subsequent years, let them lapse – or sell them to other countries that have missed their targets.
This system applies to the economic sectors that have not yet been covered by exchange trading in CO₂ certificates for energy and industry.
»Belated slap«
EU-wide, the emission limits for the transport and building sectors were complied with up to 2020 within the European burden-sharing mechanism, as some member states even fell short of their climate targets, the ministry writes.
This was a prerequisite for Germany to be able to buy emission allowances in the federal states.
"This is a subsequent slap in the face for the weak climate policy of the grand coalition and a warning shot for Germany as a whole," said Giegold, according to the announcement.
Missing the climate targets again will lead to far higher penalties.
Hungary wants to use the money to support the purchase of additional electrically operated city buses for public transport, in the Czech Republic the energy renovation of private homes is being supported and in Bulgaria the renovation of schools and other public buildings, according to the statement.
"The documentation, auditing of the implementation and the reporting obligations of the seller countries are also regulated in the contracts that Germany concludes with the countries for the purchase of emission allowances."
According to the information, the details of the purchase should be published after its full completion by the end of February 2023 at the latest.
An emergency program for climate protection recently presented by Transport Minister Volker Wissing was heavily criticized by the Expert Council for Climate Issues.
Wissing's immediate program was "already unsatisfactory from the outset," stated the experts commissioned by the federal government in a devastating verdict.
Read more about this here.
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