Re-examining the provisions for climate protection

A controversial debate is going on about the steps necessary to ensure sustainable economic development in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Social Democratic Parry (SPD) demands a national environmental plan with binding data for the consumption of resources and land as well as for pollutant loads. However this would mean going the way of an economy managed by ecology. A decision along these lines would hardly be able to make Germany, as a location of industrial production, fit for the increasingly tougher international competition. The federal government assigns priority to a concept of small steps in climate protection. At the Environmental Summit in Berlin in the spring of 1995, Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised a 25% decrease of German carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions between 1990 and 2005. By international comparison with initiatives for CO2 reduction this is an ambitious target On the one hand, it contains a binding quantitative promise where most countries avoid such verifiable statements; on the other hand the reduction rate promised is relatively high. Worldwide, a major success is seen in the possibility for the industrialized countries merely to stabilize their CO2 emissions. Even though considerable progress has been made in this country since the early nineties, the CO2 reduction level envisaged for political reasons remains threatened Compared to 1990 as the base line year, CO2 emissions in the Federal Republic by the middle of this decade have been reduced by more than 130 million tons, i. e. 13%. However, this decrease is due to the drastic decline in particularly CO2-intensive production processes in the new German federal states. In Eastern Germany, especially the use of lignite, with its relatively high carbon dioxide fractions, has been reduced. A number of aspects need to be taken into account. The reductions promised in voluntary agreements for cooperation between industry and the federal government are an important step in the right direction. Energy tares based on emissions should be introduced only on the basis of a calculable schedule, in small steps and, if possible, in an internationally harmonized approach in order to protect long-term investments. In this way, longer-term incentives could be offered in the interest of environmentally benign innovations and investments already at the stage of industrial planning. Should nuclear power, which produces no CO2 emissions, be abandoned on political grounds, the national costs of such a switch would be likely to reach amounts in the double or three-digit billions. The operation of German nuclear power plants at present allows some 150 million tons of CO2 to be avoided annually. If new reactors could be built in the future without ally political obstacles, additional CO2 savings potentials could be mobilized.