FFor the Greens, the coal phase-out is still not happening quickly enough. In the spring, after bringing forward the phase-out of lignite in the Rhenish mining area to 2030, the green parliamentary group in the Bundestag called for the same to happen in the east. This is a “necessary step to achieve the climate goals,” says the draft resolution. Your Economics Minister Robert Habeck reacted cautiously. In the meantime, his ministry has announced a report for the autumn on whether an early exit in 2030 is feasible. It is unclear what that would bring. At least so far, the coal phase-out has made no contribution to climate protection.
Blame it on the waterbed effect, missed deadlines, poorly written German law, strict EU rules and a vacuum cleaner that sputters. It is not easy to trace how the celebrated coal phase-out fizzled out. But it’s worth it because it’s a prime example of how well-intentioned policies are not good policies. And the public has hardly noticed anything about it so far.
It was clear that everything had to be right for the coal phase-out to be a climate success. This has to do with emissions trading, the core of EU climate policy. It ensures that the EU only emits so much CO2 as stipulated by the climate goals. Industry and energy producers receive the appropriate amount of emission rights every year. Some of them are auctioned, some are distributed free of charge. They can be traded. Those who have too many rights sell, those who have too few buy. But the following always applies: without certificates, no CO2-Emission.
It doesn’t fail because of EU law
What happens if politicians shut down a coal-fired power plant? The emission rights that the power plant would have consumed do not disappear. They can be bought from other emitters, who then emit correspondingly more CO2 expel. The result: emissions remain the same despite the coal phase-out. It’s like a water bed – if you press in on one spot, you won’t change the amount of liquid. It’s just distributed differently. Economists therefore speak of the waterbed effect.
Now it’s not as if politicians weren’t aware of this. As early as 2020, when Germany decided to phase out coal by 2038, former Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) called for simply deleting the certificates that would become free as a result of the decommissioning. That sounds logical, but it’s not that easy.
It doesn’t fail because of EU law. The emissions trading directive has long provided for the deletion of excess certificates after power plants are shut down. Nevertheless, Germany has not yet had a single one deleted. The German coal phase-out has already “released” millions of surplus certificates.
For 2020 and 2021 alone, there are at least twelve power plants and parts of power plants, including Ibbenbüren B and Weisweiler E. Calculated carefully, Berlin would have certificates for 26 million tons of CO for this2 The economist Hanjo Allinger from the Deggendorf University of Technology calculates that the number of flights can be deleted – four to six times what the Federal Environment Agency estimates that Tempo 120 could prevent annually, or around 70 million flights from Munich to Mallorca.
The problem is: in order to cancel certificates for a decommissioned power plant, member states have to notify the intention in Brussels by the end of the following year. That’s exactly what didn’t happen. The federal government made an attempt at the end of 2021. The EU Commission announced its intention to delete emissions rights for a power plant that was closed in 2020 when asked. “However, the information provided by the German government did not contain all the information required by the directive for the cancellation of certificates,” says a spokesman. According to the commission, in 2022 Berlin decided not to register at all.
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