With the entry into force of the amended Climate Protection Act, a new era will begin. Achieving climate neutrality by 2045 is a huge challenge for all sectors. It particularly affects parts of industry. Large and innovative industries that are at the beginning of closed value chains, for which Germany is envied around the world, have to completely rebuild their processes.
You need money from the state and, above all, reliability over years and decades. Years ago, climate protection initiated a process of transformation that devours enormous sums of money. Now they will have to increase the pace significantly again.
Many climate protectors have the misunderstanding that these companies lack the will to change. This is wrong. There is a lack of money and confidence in politics. For good reason.
For many years, the particularly badly affected companies have had to fight hard for every regulation that protects them from costs that companies beyond German borders or at least outside of the EU are not familiar with, or not at this level.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
–
–
–
It starts with the free allocation of emission certificates. Is anyone interested in the fact that the German steel industry will have to spend billions on the purchase of emission certificates by 2030 under the current conditions? And the EU Commission is currently working on regulations that will further tighten emissions trading on the basis of the raised EU climate target. So it’s not getting better for the industry, it’s getting worse.
Industry suffers from a cost avalanche
But that’s just an example. The compensation for emissions trading-related additional costs for electricity, the special compensation regulation (BesAR) of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), the exceptions to the Fuel Emissions Trading Act (BEHG) – with all these regulations, companies are lucky if they get away with a black eye. Often they pay on top. And often they get nothing.
The SESTA exceptions are the most recent example. This is where the Federal Environment Ministry strikes meticulously. If the SESTA’s Carbon Leakage Ordinance, which is intended to protect against the relocation of production due to CO2 costs, comes into force as planned, many companies will have to bleed. Your competitiveness is at risk.
These are hot-dip galvanizers or plastics processors, parts of the food industry or manufacturers of technical textiles. So not the big ones in the German economy, rather small, often family-run businesses.
In the future, they will bear burdens that are unknown in the Czech Republic or France, and certainly not in China. They don’t make it onto the list of industries that have exemptions from carbon pricing. For example, because they are not trade-intensive enough, so they may not buy or sell across borders. Yes and? Even if you supply a car manufacturer in Germany, you have to assert yourself in the price war against competitors from the Czech Republic or Poland.
The list of examples goes on: benchmarks that cannot be met technically, high requirements for a permanent increase in energy efficiency, annually repeating application procedures for one and the same discount. It never ends. Anyone looking for an explanation for the fact that energy-intensive industries in particular have been investing less than they write off for years, i.e. using up their substance, has found it.
Anyone who speaks to politicians about all of these weaknesses and loopholes will receive a shrug in response. One of the common answers is that there is no other way in terms of state aid law, Brussels looks very carefully.
Companies can no longer be treated as supplicants
Yes, there have been free riders with all these regulations. And yes, emissions trading was toothless for years, and the free allocation of certificates was abundant. But that’s over. It’s serious, and it’s getting much more serious.
That calls for a completely new approach. Companies can no longer be treated like supplicants. Politics demands massive changes from them. Then she has to help actively – and not show mercy.
For example, many companies would be helped if the idea of a European industrial electricity price prevailed. Anyone discussing this proposal with ministerial officials will reap a weary smile: they found that it was difficult under state aid law. Then the problem is not the industrial electricity price, but the state aid law.
A European industrial electricity price is needed
It is also no longer enough to regard contracts for differences as just a good idea. You have to turn it into an easy-to-use instrument as quickly as possible. You have to equip this instrument with a lot of billions.
The federal government that is currently still in office also knows this. But when Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier proudly adds up that his ministry and the Federal Environment Ministry provided five billion euros for the decarbonization of industry from 2022 to 2024, that looks more cute than convincing. This federal government lacks the strength to seriously advance the issue.
It will be an extremely important task for the Greens, if they participate in government, to create a structure for large parts of the German economy at the beginning of the next legislative period that is at least as reliable as that for the promotion of renewable energies. That will cost tens of billions per year over years and decades. But otherwise tens of thousands of companies cannot survive the transformation process towards climate neutrality.
More: The Climate Protection Act brings these burdens to the economy.
– .
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/GKRXLGAC45AXFHJJDCWJNCWPLY.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1)