It was a week before Christmas when applause erupted in the meeting room of the EU Parliament in Brussels: After around 30 hours of marathon negotiations, the MEPs had agreed on the “Fit for 55” climate package. One or the other MEP spoke of a “historic moment”. It was about a reform of European emissions trading: companies in the EU – such as power plants, chemical plants and cement factories – have to buy pollution rights.
Their quantity is constantly being reduced in order to give companies an incentive to emit less carbon dioxide. The applause was now for the decision to reduce the certificates more quickly and thus save greenhouse gas emissions more quickly. In addition, the system is to be extended to other sectors. In addition, free allocations that some polluters have received so far are to be gradually phased out. With a few exceptions.
Two tricky exceptions to CO2 trading
These exceptions include two particularly sensitive industries: private planes and private yachts. Their owners or renters are further excluded from carbon trading. The EU had decided to extend emissions trading to include road and ship traffic as well as buildings. However, this was a decision with limitations.
The whole thing does not apply to “non-commercial operators or pure leisure boats”, the EU Commission has now divided Request from Norddeutscher Rundfunk with. The size of the ships is irrelevant. Those billionaires and oligarchs who afford ships the size of small passenger liners don’t have to buy CO2 rights, at least if they use their yachts themselves.
A yacht that does not fall under emissions trading and can currently be chartered, for example, is after NDR research the “Dream”. It has a pool, of course also a spa area, a cinema, helipad, 22 luxury cabins and a crew of more than 30. It costs around two million euros to rent a week. It comes with its 290,000 liter tank at an average speed of almost 12,000 kilometers, which corresponds to a consumption of around 240 liters per 100 kilometers – and more than 6.5 tons of CO2.
Private planes make up twelve percent of all air traffic
Exception rules also apply to private planes. If you use a machine privately or for your own company, you can emit up to 1000 tons of CO2 free of charge. For commercial operators, such as charter companies, the limit is even 10,000 tons. This form of locomotion is also not a marginal phenomenon. More private planes took off from German airports last year than ever before.
The air control organization Eurocontrol recorded a total of more than 94,000 take-offs of aircraft from the so-called business segment, an increase of nine percent compared to the previous year. Private flights accounted for around twelve percent of all air traffic in Germany. It is mainly about domestic flights with distances of less than 500 kilometers.
“Bureaucratic effort” too high
Some rich people can therefore continue to travel in an extremely CO2-intensive way without paying additional costs, whereas road traffic, for example, will in future be subject to emissions trading throughout Europe. “This unequal treatment is really amazing and very unfair,” says Jacob Armstrong of the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment NDR.
The EU Council of Ministers and Commission cite the “bureaucratic effort” that arises when every captain and pilot has to report their emissions as the reason why superyachts and private aircraft are exempt from emissions trading for the time being. MEP Peter Liese from the CDU sees things differently. After all, the CO2 price can simply be added to the fuel consumed – similar to what is already happening on the road in Germany.
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According to Liese, the Council and Commission rejected this. The aim was not to burden owners of smaller private boats, fishermen or operators of island ferries with any additional costs. That’s what happened – co-beneficiaries, however, are probably the super-rich, for whom a few thousand euros more in gas costs would no longer matter in view of the champagne bill.
The contribution “Yachts and private planes of all things are allowed to continue to stink” comes from economic courier.
