Political castles in the air
Traffic turnaround in the dead end
By Helmut Becker
1/30/2022 2:54 p.m
The new federal government is committed to saving the climate. However, climate neutrality is not possible without the transport sector. But what does that mean for drivers?
In terms of climate policy, the new federal government is following the guidelines of the grand coalition. This anchored Germany’s path to climate neutrality in the Climate Protection Act by the middle of the century. According to this, emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 in Europe’s largest economy are to be reduced by 65 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, and by at least 88 percent by 2040. Germany wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2045, i.e. only emit as many greenhouse gases as can be bound again. The new federal government has further intensified these ambitious goals. Any change must now “go very, very quickly,” said Green co-boss Annalena Baerbock.
There is social agreement that the medium and long-term climate targets, which have been tightened, cannot be achieved without the transport sector. “A central pillar of our climate policy is the turnaround in transport,” said Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his first government statement. Mobility must become more climate-friendly, the focus will be on expanding rail. The climate plan of the new federal government is clearly aimed at less private transport, which should then be all the greener. In plain language: fewer petrol and diesel vehicles and more electric cars, strengthening and expanding the railways, better networking of the individual means of public transport.
Displeasure spreads
To paraphrase Faust: “I hear the message well, but I lack faith!” Under today’s socio-political conditions, this climate-friendly turnaround in transport is not achievable. There are several arguments against this: the car customer does not want or cannot do without his own car for lack of alternatives. He wants to drive in an environmentally friendly way, but so far not electrically.
The growing social inequalities in distribution due to the one-sided state support of the well-heeled buyers of electric cars – high purchase premiums and high public investments in the development of the filling station infrastructure – with simultaneous increases in the cost of driving combustion cars due to the “CO2 fuel price brake”.
Displeasure spreads. Two empirical facts show that people cannot do without their own car, either because they do not want to do without it for personal reasons or because they cannot do without their own car because of work.
Damn stats
A commuter survey conducted every four years by the Federal Statistical Office in mid-2021 comes to the conclusion that the car is and will remain the number one means of transport for Germany’s commuters on the way to work. Despite all traffic turnaround requests, there are no foreseeable alternatives.
According to the statisticians, two thirds of employees (68 percent) drive to work or the office by car. Even for shorter distances, only a good 13 percent regularly use public transport such as buses, trams, subways or trains to get to work. Almost half of all employees (48 percent) say they have to travel less than 10 kilometers to work, for 29 percent the way to work is 10 to 25 kilometers long, 14 percent cover 25 to 50 kilometers. In contrast, only every tenth employed person regularly gets on a bicycle to get to work; this stands in stark contrast to the high level of public investment in the expansion of local and long-distance cycle paths. Instead of easing, the traffic jam intensity on the inner-city road network, which is narrow for cars, is increasing.
The important thing is that these results are not a snapshot, but a trend, because compared to the last survey in 2016, the percentages of the individual modes of transport have remained almost unchanged.
And this trend is even backed up statistically. The “unbroken dominance of the car as a means of transport” is also reflected in the latest data on the number of motor vehicles from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). Despite all the political incantations and despite the Corona crisis, Germans bought more cars instead of fewer in 2021, the number of registered cars in Germany continued to rise even during the pandemic crisis. According to the Federal Motor Vehicle Office (KBA), 48.648 million cars were registered in Germany on October 1, 2021, around 400,000 cars more than at the beginning of the year. And 47 million of that legacy stock were ICE vehicles.
Conversion and expansion takes years
The fact is: there have never been so many cars in Germany as there are now, a new all-time high, the exact opposite of the citizens’ abstinence from cars and a reduction in the number of vehicles with combustion engines. The mobility guarantee promised to all citizens in the city and above all in the country during the election campaign through a connection to public transport close to home has not yet been seen.
The fulfillment of this promise is also in the stars. Rightly so, because the expansion of the bus and train network, especially in rural areas, takes years and costs billions. According to “Automobilwoche”, the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) came to the conclusion in a report published at the end of August 2021 that local transport companies in Germany will need an additional 48 billion euros by 2030 to achieve the EU climate targets. Money only for the renovation of the existing public transport fleet, not additional funds for additional buses and more trains! According to the VDV report, in order to also achieve the reduction in CO2 emissions specified by the federal government, the range of bus and train services in cities and in the country would have to be expanded by a quarter. This would increase costs by 89 percent by the end of the decade compared to 2018.
In addition, the second pillar of the politically intended traffic turnaround – electromobility – also stands on shaky foundations. The goal of the old federal government and its advisory body, the National Platform for Electromobility (NPE), founded in 2010, was the fundamental replacement of fossil diesel and petrol cars with electric cars. To this end, with strong financial incentives to buy and state investments in the development of a charging infrastructure of up to four billion euros per year, one million electric cars should be on the road by 2020 and Germany should be made the leading market and global provider for electromobility and 30,000 additional jobs should be created.
From poor to green
As of June 1, 2021, the federal government had achieved the goal of one million electric cars, but of these 494,000 were plug-in hybrids (PHEV) with combustion engines, which to date could ideally only drive 50 kilometers purely electrically with a battery . The targeted 30,000 jobs were not created either, but have been lost to date – roughly. Irrespective of this, the federal government’s climate targets envisage increasing the number of electric cars by the early 1930s to 10 million or more. The support measures have been extended.
And this addresses the third weakness of the political traffic turnaround: the negative redistribution effect of the one-sided promotion of electromobility at the expense of drivers with combustion vehicles. The electric car subsidies mainly benefit a few high earners, but have to be paid for by the majority of low and average earners.
A study by Deutsche Bank from the summer of 2021, which was hardly noticed in the heat of the election year, comes to the conclusion that electromobility in the German way is a redistribution from poor to green.
There is no doubt that there is a climate policy compulsion to reduce CO2 in transport. However, a turnaround in transport and climate can only be achieved if, instead of the previous one-sided concentration and promotion of electromobility, the political focus is on the large number of old fossil fuel vehicles. There the environmental music plays, not with the small number of new registrations of pure Stromers. The continued operation of the old stock with non-fossil fuel would be a big step towards climate neutrality for Germany.
In order to achieve the German climate goals, there can only be a both and not a unilateral commitment to a questionable technology.