Contents page 1 — Important, but not sufficient page 2 — A traffic-read is turning is necessary On a page

One thing is already clear. Germany will fail to reach the climate protection targets for the year 2020. Without further measures, this also applies to the objectives for 2030, to which Germany is committed to the EU. In the coming years, billions in penalty payments may become necessary. Even in January presented a compromise to the coal phaseout is not enough to close the gap and to the objectives of the Paris climate protection agreement.

seems to be After ten years on the fringes of political attention up to now, however, a Chance for a new and stricter climate policy in Germany. The question is, what measures Germany in the short term, emissions can be reduced. In the long term, not only the electricity sector, but all sectors including transport, buildings, business and industry must be decarbonised – with no carbon emissions, produce more.

An area-wide CO2 price has been regarded for many years as an essential component of climate policy, was, however, clearly a political act, not a majority. This seems to be changing now. In her weekly Podcast itself, the Chancellor spoke before Easter, “the pricing of CO2 still more in the focus”. They formulated this as an Alternative to in the draft climate protection act created a binding sectoral climate protection goals.

so Far, a price for CO2 exists only for the EU-emission trading sectors covered – so especially for the electricity sector and heavy industry. In the discussion of an additional CO2-tax or a full or partial conversion of the existing taxes and taxation system to a CO2 Basis for the sectors outside the EU emissions trading system is currently. In particular, the transport and the Building industry. As a result, economic incentives could be created, climate-damaging behavior. More importantly, the signal effect would be: The climate-damaging impacts of consumption of fossil energy would be reduced by just consumers with every bill in front of you.

tenant with no influence

But how high such a tax should be? And you should be in all sectors the same? In each sector, consumers react differently to prices. A CO2-price affects, in particular, where consumers are paying attention particularly carefully on prices and the cost of their energy consumption to reduce. For example, in the energy-intensive industry and the electricity industry of the case, because the energy costs make up a significant proportion of the cost structure. A more efficient use of energy is therefore a question of competitiveness.

most of the problems, however, is where the actors only in a very limited framework on cost optimization or other obstacles. This is, for example, in the building sector. There saving opportunities often remain untapped, even though they were actually economical. For example, tenants bear the substantial costs of energy consumption, however, have little impact on investment in building technology. You not only energy-saving measures by the company’s own use. Conversely, owners will have to invest only small incentives, it is also a CO2-price changes little. This would possibly contribute to an owner in the case of a broken heating system can be a low-CO2 replacement can be installed. An incentive for the early replacement of the system for cost reasons, for the owner, however.

A CO2 price alone will therefore have little influence on how many buildings are being renovated in Germany each year for energy. In order to achieve the objectives of the Paris climate agreement needs to increase the renovation rate significantly – by approximately one percent per year in 2015, every year at least three percent in the next decades. This requires a policy of “Encourage, Challenge and Inform”, which helps specifically addressed barriers as outlined above, tenant-landlord Dilemma and overcome. According to our investigations, the Federal funds would have to be doubled in this area, to around five billion euros in the year. And this demand could be covered with a CO2-tax.