In the Bundestag, the parties are debating the new climate protection law and the sustainability strategy. Almost everyone thinks that Germany should become climate neutral – only how does it cause controversy. And a long-running favorite in particular rekindles discussions.
Germany is to become climate neutral by 2045, according to the planned new climate protection law and the associated sustainability strategy. But how will that work? This was the question that sparked the debate in the Bundestag that morning at the first reading on the proposed law that the cabinet had passed two months ago. The parties agree that CO2 emissions must be massively reduced so that Germany can play its part in the fight against climate change – with the exception of the AfD, which calls for a return to coal and nuclear power and calls into question that climate change is man-made is. The dispute over gasoline prices – the long-running German election campaigns – caused fire in the debate.
The Federal Constitutional Court had issued a warning about the new law. In it, the judges argued that future generations should still be able to live in freedom – which would be in danger if the climate crisis dictated their lifestyle. Therefore, they obliged the federal government to improve climate protection. The Union and the SPD reacted promptly and quickly agreed on the preferred climate neutrality. Now, by 2030, compared to 1990, CO2 emissions are to be reduced not just by 55, but by 65 percent. Climate neutrality should not be achieved until 2050, but five years earlier. The fact that it happened so quickly also has something to do with the election campaign. The governing parties probably wanted to prevent the topic from becoming a sure-fire success for the Greens, who hit the mark in their brand core.
In the Bundestag debate, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said that she would have liked to set higher goals for the first climate protection law – with which the SPD politician indirectly admitted that she had not prevailed last year. The Union MP Anja Weißgerber tried in her contribution to include the word “ambitious” as often as possible when describing the plans. Left-wing parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch commented dryly: “Before that, you cheered the old law up, how great it is. Now when I hear how ambitious the new one is, why didn’t you do it that way?” Without the Federal Constitutional Court, the coalition would not have acted at all, said Bartsch. At the same time, he fueled the dispute over the price of petrol.
“What do you say to the nurse?”
Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock recently told the “Bild” newspaper that the price of petrol would rise by 16 cents, which was in the interests of climate protection. And even if – actually – the Union and the SPD also want to stop global warming: They did not allow themselves to be deprived of this opportunity to bring the polls high-flyers back from the Greens to the bottom of the facts in the election campaign. SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz as well as Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer from the CSU gave the car driver friends and pretended that there would be no petrol price increase with them – although, the Greens argued, the already decided increase in the CO2 price per ton provides exactly that . That may have caught a bit, because in polls the Greens fell behind.
Bartsch also took this notch when he asked the Environment Minister: “What do you say to the nurse in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who has an oil heater in the basement and a burner? Should she just pay for it?” In doing so, he was addressing precisely the crux of the brave new eco-world – the cost. Electric cars are expensive even with subsidies, heat pumps for heating all the more, and Germany already has the highest electricity price in Europe. “They act as price drivers that eat up people’s wages and pensions,” said Bartsch.
That is also the question that the Greens have to answer not only in the petrol dispute. They have come up with energy money for this, which should be given to those who cause less CO2 – because they drive small cars, heat small apartments and make little or no air travel. Say: the poorer. Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter threw himself on the offensive after the recent criticism – and threw himself on the SPD: “What I particularly reproach you for is what you have withdrawn in the past few weeks. You and your candidate for chancellor have made up their minds to consciously take action against a climate protection policy that you yourself called for two weeks ago, “he grumbled. And: “Olaf Scholz stirs up resentment with Andi Scheuer of all people – that you are not embarrassed – for a ‘Bild’ headline.” What Hofreiter, in turn, portrayed as sacrilege in the “most important future project of our time”, climate neutrality. His party friend Sylvia Kotting-Uhl went one better and called the Union and SPD the “coalition of hypocrisy”. Because the already existing climate protection law results in a gasoline price increase of 15.5 cents for 2025. She defended the price increases in connection with the energy money as a steering effect in climate policy with simultaneous social balance.
Union against energy money from the Greens
Union representative Kai Whittaker gave the impression that the Greens wanted to add 16 cents to the said 15.5 cents, which they rejected. Whittaker said the difference was that the Union wanted the increase gradually, but the Greens wanted it in one fell swoop – subtleties that may be secondary for many drivers. His criticism then targeted the energy money. “You want to build up a new bureaucracy to pay people 7.50 euros a month,” he railed. On the other hand, the Union wants to relieve citizens of other taxes for rising CO2 prices. “We don’t have to laboriously give the money back to the citizens. We don’t even take it out of their pockets.”
If the Union and the SPD had hoped to keep the issue out of the election campaign with their quickly presented climate law, this mission has failed, as the debate showed. The question of how to reduce CO2 emissions without driving out industry, without overburdening average and below-average earners, remains a long-running issue. The debate also showed that climate policy has its pitfalls even for the Greens in the election campaign. Because many citizens would certainly spontaneously agree that Germany should become climate neutral. But how much is left of it when it comes to your own money? Not only is the climate warming, the election campaign is also getting hotter.
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