Transport Minister Volker Wissing is meeting with the “last generation” on Tuesday. In view of the impending climate catastrophe, there is a lot for the liberals to do.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has been in office for almost a year and a half – and he has been criticized for almost as long because, according to many experts, he is doing too little to protect the climate.
The accusation, for example from the independent expert council of the federal government for climate issues: The CO2 emissions of the transport sector are still too high. If the federal government adhered to its own climate protection law, Wissing’s ministry would now have to revise the emergency program presented last year, which is intended to show ways of meeting the CO2 target.
Thomas Heimer, Professor of Innovation Management at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and member of the Expert Council, calculates in an interview with ZDF: “The emergency program for the transport sector must be expanded by a further 261 million tonnes of emission savings in order to achieve the climate targets of the Federal Climate Protection Act in 2030. “
For this there are two main construction sites that the Federal Ministry of Transport under Volker Wissing must tackle immediately:
- Lower car emissions: Here, Volker Wissing relies primarily on e-fuels, i.e. synthetically produced fuels. These are produced from water and CO2 using electricity. However, the e-fuels are criticized because they are not efficient enough. Even the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) does not list them as a solution in its building blocks for ambitious climate protection in transport. Rather, electrification should be promoted, and diesel and company car privileges should be abolished. In addition, the UBA considers a general speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour on motorways to be sensible in order to save CO2.
- More freight traffic by rail: Another construction site is the question of how a larger proportion of freight traffic can be shifted from road to rail. Because freight transport is growing: by 2030, the Federal Ministry of Transport forecasts that freight transport performance will increase by 38 percent compared to 2010. According to the UBA, trucks will account for 71 percent of goods transport performance. However, a freight train only needs 20 percent of the energy of a truck and causes only around 25 percent of its emissions. According to the think tank Agora Verkehrswende, however, it is unlikely that a large part of freight transport will be carried out by rail in the future. Therefore, the Ministry of Transport must develop a climate-neutral drive concept for trucks that can prevail throughout Europe.
Chancellery exempts Wissing from the obligation to implement an immediate programme
The problem with all this: the ministry has little time to tackle the construction sites. “At the moment it doesn’t look as if we can achieve the climate goals,” said Brigitte Knopf, Vice Chair of the Expert Council at the end of last year in “Spiegel”.
According to experts, there are plenty of opportunities for the Ministry of Transport to finally tackle climate protection effectively. There are still climate-damaging incentives such as the company car privilege, which could be abolished. In addition, a general speed limit could be introduced on motorways, which, according to a study by the Federal Environment Agency, could save almost seven million tons of CO2 equivalents every year.
