German Green Party launches election manifesto

Germany's Green Party is calling for a national carbon floor price and a legally mandated exit from lignite and coal-fired generation as it presented its draft manifesto for this year's general elections.

Germany will hold general elections on 24 September.

The Green Party was one the first parties to launch its election manifest today, repeating many of its key pledges from recent years.

The party is calling for reforms to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and for the introduction of a German carbon floor price to incentivise low-carbon power production and emissions cuts in other sectors. The party would use the income from the tax to fund climate protection measures such as a transition towards low-carbon industrial processes and increasing energy efficiency in the housing sector.

The Green Party in its draft manifesto also repeated its plans to immediately retire 20 of Germany's highest emitting lignite and coal power plant units and phase-out the remaining plants within 20 years, by the end of the 2030s. Under the party's [phase-out plan] (https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/1384974?keywords=green%20party%20coal%20exit), a C02 budget for all of Germany's remaining fossil fuel plants would be introduced, with a cap that should be aligned with Germany's greenhouse gas reduction targets. And the party wants to introduce a ban on new lignite mines.

The draft manifesto also includes a pledge to continue and extend subsidies under the German renewable energy act (EEG), which has come under scrutiny by other parties, by raising renewable extension targets. The current coalition government between Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU-CSU union and the SPD party has adopted goals — embedded in the EEG — for renewable energy to meet 40-45pc of gross power demand in 2025 and 55-60pc by 2035, compared with around 32pc last year. The Green Party wants to reach 100pc of renewables by 2030. An incentive scheme for power storage systems such as batteries would be introduced to complement the move, the Green Party says.

The party also wants to support electric mobility partly by allowing only the production of emission-free vehicles in Germany from 2030, essentially banning diesel and petrol cars from German-based car manufacturing.

Other pledges in the manifesto include support for energy efficiency and reintroduction of the German fuel rod tax until the last reactors come off line by the end of 2022. The fuel rod tax expired at the end of last year.

Separately, the right-leaning AfD party today also published its manifesto for the upcoming elections. The party wants to end the decarbonisation process by ending subsidies for renewable energy. And the party wants to reverse the nuclear phase-out decision.

Current polls put the Green Party at 7pc of the vote and the Afd at around 9pc, although the latter is unlikely to find a coalition partner. The Green Party has previously been in a federal coalition government with the SPD and, on a regional, state government basis with the CDU since the last general elections in 2013.

Polls put the CDU-CSU union and the SPD in a tight race at around 34pc and 32pc of the vote, respectively, with the SPD receiving support following the announcement of Martin Schulz as its candidate in the upcoming elections. The FDP, Angela Merkel's preferred partner, is currently polling around the 5pc mark which is the minimum needed to get into the lower house of parliament.