Franziska Brantner was able to prove that the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) is not just a men’s club on Sunday evening at “Anne Will”. The Green politician has been Parliamentary State Secretary in the house of Robert Habeck and his “Three Musketeers” Patrick Graichen, Sven Giegold and Michael Kellner since December 2021.
However, the doctorate in political science, who has been active in politics since 2009 in the European Parliament and in the Bundestag since 2013, is no different than her BMWK colleagues. She celebrated the sale of Viessmann as a “very strong investment by an American company in Germany”. “Great! In fact, a transatlantic climate champion is being built!”
Habeck apparently sent the 43-year-old from Lörrach to the talk show to spread optimism there. Brantner doesn’t want to know anything about the sale of a German future technology in times of the heat transition: “A partner who brings know-how and capital, that’s positive.”
It remains to be seen where the added value will actually take place in the medium term. It is quite possible that the profits will flow to the USA and investments to Poland or Slovakia.
Boom for heat pumps thanks to the new GEG
Brantner brushes aside the great uncertainty in Germany that her ministry, together with the Federal Ministry of Building, has artificially created through the new Building Energy Act (GEG) as well as the special boom for heat pumps. “We do it pragmatically – the state pays up to 50 percent.” And: “It’s about better prosperity – in harmony with nature. That is the big task.”
After all: Now we know the reason why 75 percent of German house and apartment owners should switch from gas and oil to other heating methods. For better prosperity in harmony with nature.
Conversely, does that mean: The current prosperity in Germany is not good enough? It is somehow undeserved and has a “taste” because our climatic footprint is too big?
That’s why Habeck, as he always emphasizes, doesn’t come straight to his home and tear out the gas heating, but one thing is already clear: From 2045 there will be no more pure gas and oil heating in Germany. If the boiler breaks beyond repair beforehand, the ban will apply from next year.
According to the BMWK, Habeck’s heating transition will cost homeowners 130 billion euros
Germany’s share of global emissions is 2.0 percent. Heating, in turn, contributes around one-fifth to local CO2 emissions. No question. There is leeway here. Anyone who builds a new building therefore usually already uses a heat pump. Also because the investment pays off in the long term.
According to the BMWK, the heating transition will cost property owners a total of around 130 billion euros. Estimates, for example by the FDP energy politician Michael Kruse, assume a good 600 billion euros. Franziska Brantner promises in “Anne Will” that half of the state pays. First lesson in social studies: We are all the state. So everyone pays in one way or another.
So the question is: Do the 130 to 600 billion euros that apartment and house owners, ultimately tenants and basically all taxpayers have to shell out for Robert Habeck’s heat pump dream really have a positive impact on the climate? A not entirely unimportant question.
Heating revolution increases demand for oil and gas heating
You don’t have to lean too far out of the window if you doubt that. The costs are not in any reasonable proportion to the benefit, especially since climate protection must be viewed globally. Just because the Germans will soon be heating differently doesn’t mean the whole world will follow our example. Especially in view of the associated high transformation costs and the inherent social explosives.
The Germans are not a people of revolutionaries, as a look at the history book shows. In these undoubtedly challenging times, revolutionary thoughts that want to transform the country are doing the opposite anyway. The demand for oil and gas heating has rarely been greater than it is now. And the Greens themselves are also noticing, based on surveys, that this style of politics is finding fewer and fewer supporters among the electorate.
Nevertheless, changes are necessary, even if they hurt. That’s what forward-thinking politics is for. Letting everything go is not a solution either. However, it depends on the right sense of proportion and an eye for what can also be implemented in practice. Politics with the crowbar in a hurry-up procedure, which ideally wants to change everything immediately and at once, is all too quickly exposed as pure ideology.
The people responsible for Germany’s economic policy, including Franziska Brantner, should take smaller steps and go one after the other. For example, as long as the energy transition is not even remotely complete, the heating transition cannot succeed either.
Or what is the advantage if the heat pump has to run on coal power on cold winter days despite the PV system on the roof?
