A person briefed on Germany’s climate action talks has told Reuters Newsagency that climate protection measures that the conservative party of Chancellor Angela Merkel and its Social Democrat coalition partners want to unveil this week will cost at least €40 billion until 2023.
“We agree that something needs to be done but it is still open which form this will take,” said the source briefed on the talks, which ended late on Friday.
“We still have not agreed on a price for a tonne of carbon dioxide (C02).”
Some media reports say Chancellor Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance has proposed setting up a national emissions trading system for transport and buildings, with an upper and lower price limit, as part of major climate action decisions planned for a government meeting on September 20.
Reuters reports the government wants to unveil its climate protection package on September 20 and Chancellor Merkel has said the plans would include some sort of carbon emissions pricing to finance measures aimed at reducing emissions.
The coalition partners, which include Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), their Bavaria Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are divided on how to finance Germany’s march toward a green future.
Reuters reports Chancellor Merkel’s conservatives have been cast as more eager to ensure that the burden of financing the measures does not hurt German industry.
At the same time the SPD wants to protect small earners.
Chancellor Merkel touched on those dilemmas facing her ministers in her weekly podcast.
“On the one hand we want climate protections measures to be effective to meet our commitments,” she said.
“On the other hand we want to be economically sensible and act in a socially acceptable way so that all people can afford climate protection.”
The plans are expected to touch on a broad range of issues such as extending grants for electric car buyers, expanding a network of charging stations, raising road taxes for polluting vehicles, improving heating systems for buildings and raising a green surcharge for plane tickets.
The coalition partners will meet again on Thursday to resolve their difference before the plans are unveiled the next day.
One of Germany’s main goals is to double the share of its power from renewable sources to 65 per cent by 2030.
It also wants to shut down all coal-powered power stations by 2038, which will require it to spend at least €40 billion on mining regions to help them deal with the shift.
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