According to Ifo president Clemens Fuest, the policy makes much-needed climate protection unnecessarily complicated and expensive. Climate protection would be easier, faster and cheaper to achieve with a nationwide CO2 price, Fuest said Wednesday at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper's sustainability summit in Munich. There are no detailed CO2 regulations necessary for heating owners, businesses or drivers: “This is paid simply by filling the tank. End of advertisement.”
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Today, companies invest enormous effort in determining their CO2 footprint. “I think this is completely unnecessary,” Fuest said. By issuing a limited and decreasing amount of CO2 emission allowances, “climate protection would cost less” and would save a lot of time and bureaucracy.
“Blood, sweat and tears”
Jörg Eigendorf, head of Deutsche Bank, said: “If the German economy knew with certainty that in ten years the price of CO2 would be three times higher, completely different investment decisions would be made.” The costs of climate change occurred somewhere in the form of heat waves or storms. The market does not put a price on climate damage. The State has to do this and make CO2 scarce through emissions trading. Credit reform director Benjamin Mohr said companies expect “clear framework conditions from politicians.”
Fuest said the federal government was hiding the costs of the energy transition from voters. An economic miracle is promised, but initially the transformation will take “blood, sweat and tears,” said Fuest: “We move in a world of illusions.” The government should finally treat citizens “like adults and not like children.” Wind turbines produced the electricity previously generated by coal-fired power plants, but they initially cost money. “That's why we have to make sacrifices, at least during the transition period.”
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