New package for transport sector
Greens want to help Wissing with climate protection
01/12/2023 3:44 p.m
Volker Wissing “must get out of the slow train,” the Greens warn, with a view to protecting the environment. The transport sector is currently bringing up the rear in the fight against the climate crisis. In order to help the Federal Minister of Transport, the parliamentary group is now providing a comprehensive catalog of measures.
The Greens are putting pressure on Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing because they believe he is doing too little for the climate. “Volker Wissing has to get out of the slow train when it comes to climate protection,” said Green Party leader Katharina Dröge at the closed meeting of the parliamentary group executive committee. The Greens wanted to help Wissing with this. At the closed conference, the parliamentary group board approved a paper entitled “Starter package for more climate protection in the transport sector”. It says that in the federal government’s “joint fight against the climate crisis”, the transport sector is “currently bringing up the rear”.
In order to remedy the situation, the parliamentary group leadership proposes measures in four areas. On the one hand, rail, bike and bus should become more attractive in the city and country, among other things with cheaper tickets and more investments in local transport as well as changes in traffic law. What is also needed is the “dismantling of environmentally harmful subsidies”, such as the tax deductibility of company cars and fossil fuels, as well as a socio-ecological reform of the commuter allowance.
Under the heading “Accelerate planning for rails and bridges”, the Greens faction leader also calls for “full concentration on the renovation of bridges and existing highways”. In contrast, the expansion of motorways and federal trunk roads planned for 2030 would have to be “significantly” reduced.
The last point of the paper is an “electrification offensive for freight transport”. At the same time, the top Greens emphasize that the proposed measures could “only represent the beginning of a comprehensive traffic turnaround”. More is needed, including “a general speed limit or a major reform of vehicle tax”.
Habeck sees a big gap
Federal Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck said at the joint press conference with Dröge that there was movement in the transport sector, “but by no means enough”. Here there is a “gap in climate protection that the federal government can’t live with. It has to be closed in ’23”. “There is no shortage of ideas, of possible measures,” stressed Habeck. “I don’t think that Volker Wissing wants to be the minister who, at the end of the legislature, is the only one who hasn’t managed to close the climate protection gap in his department.”
At the end of October, the federal government initiated the departmental coordination on the immediate climate protection program in order to bring Germany on course to the reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The emergency program had become necessary after previous interim goals had not been achieved, especially in the building and transport sectors. According to information from government circles at the time, the gap in the Ministry of Transport is still the largest with 271 million tons of CO2 that also have to be saved.