Brussels.
The EU wants to reduce CO2 emissions with tighter price surcharges – which consumers face, where Germany is a pioneer.
Higher prices instead of bans: the European Union wants consumers and manufacturers in Germany and Europe to buy more in the coming years with increased price increases for climate-damaging energy climate protection force. The consequences will be far-reaching, for industry as well as for consumers: in many cases, electricity, heating and fuel will become more expensive every year across Europe.
The EU Parliament set the course on Tuesday: It passed a law with which the Emissionshandel will be significantly tightened in the next few years, and the price per tonne of C02 will rise as a result. The principle: Since 2005, energy-intensive industrial companies, electricity and heat producers in the EU have had to buy emission certificates for the carbon dioxide they emit. The price for C02 emissions is an incentive to produce in a more climate-friendly manner and to save energy. This market-based process is considered the heart of European climate protection policy.
In Germany, trade with the flushed pollution rights 13 billion euros in the federal budget last year. With the new directive, the EU is now turning this price screw and expanding the circle of those affected. On the one hand, the number of certificates will be gradually reduced, which means that the price will rise. Free certificates for particularly C02-intensive industrial sectors will be completely abolished within ten years. By 2030, the greenhouse gas emissions of the sectors involved are to be 62 percent below those of 2005.
Surcharges for transport and buildings: In Germany there is no going back
In addition, from 2027, road traffic and heat generation will also fall under the C02 price regime – i.e. refueling and heating. However: In Germany, traffic and buildings have been included in emissions trading with a national law since 2021, so over the next three years the price of a liter of petrol will increase by around 8 cents in this country. owner of Oil and gas heating or cars with internal combustion engines now have certainty that there will be no turning back in Germany when it comes to price increases for fossil fuels. According to the European plan, price jumps at petrol stations will initially remain more moderate than provided for in German law.
Intra-European emissions trading is now being more consistently included, which will make flying more expensive, and for the first time also maritime transport: the pollution rights for ships alone would save 35 times as much CO2 by 2030 as the controversial CO2 rules for cars, explained the CDU environmental politician Peter Liese, who was responsible for negotiating the law with the EU states on behalf of Parliament. He calls the new rules “the greatest climate protection law of all time”.
The revenue from the new pollution rights for traffic and buildings should be largely combined Climate Social Fund flow: With the money from this pot, the EU states should then help households and companies to cushion the increased costs – details are open and are to be regulated later at national level.
The Greens in the EU Parliament called for additional EU funds for the social fund: “It is disappointing that Commission President von der Leyen and many member states are ignoring the economic problems of many people,” said the spokesman for the German Green MEPs, Rasmus Andresen. So that European companies can continue to international competition the EU also wants to introduce a kind of CO2 tariff for imports: Non-European producers have to pay a levy if they want to sell energy-intensive products such as steel, cement or aluminum in the EU that were not manufactured according to European climate protection standards.
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