On 9 April 2025, Germany’s incoming government of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) concluded a governing ‘contract’ that paves the way for the partners to take office in May. The new chancellor will be CDU chief Friedrich Merz, who underscored in the campaign that climate protection would not be a top priority. Paul Hockenos reports.

The coalition contract’s lukewarm measures – and selective reversal of past policies – are thus no surprise. But given the hundreds of billions now available to the new government through changed budgetary legislation, activists and energy experts had hoped for much better.

In several areas, the incoming government didn’t diverge significantly from the outgoing centre-left coalition. After all, Germany’s climate goals are inscribed in German law and the EU, too, has benchmarks that every country is required to hit. Thus, renewable energy is set to expand further and Germany will continue to build out the necessary power grid, including overhead lines, to facilitate it. Moreover, new measures addressing energy sharing and tenant electricity will enable neighbours and communities to participate more directly in the Energiewende.

And Germany will stick with Europe’s most potent climate tool: the emissions trading scheme, known as EU ETS. The mechanism has been decisive in Europe reducing its emissions by 47% since 2005. However, it is not yet clear to what extent the new government will return to consumers the scheme’s revenues, which until now had gone to climate-related purposes.

And, at long last, Germany’s dilapidated transportation infrastructure, primarily the railway system, will get the overhaul it has required for some time. The paper does not, however, state exactly how many billions of euros will go to this task. Also to the positive, the ‘Germany ticket’, a monthly 58-euro pass for all local connections, will remain in place until 2029.

Moreover, measures that will please German consumers – although not deficit hawks – the government intends to lower electricity prices by at least five cents per kilowatt-hour by cutting the electricity tax to the European minimum, reduce grid fees, and introduce an industrial electricity price. None of these measures, however, will increase energy efficiency and lower energy consumption – on the contrary.

Worse than modest

But this veneer of upbeat gestures is thin, and Germany’s climate community is furious. It counters that climate targets, the end of combustion engines, and the phase-out of coal will be set back by years. Germany will almost certainly fall short of meeting climate goals, they charge.

Despite the ever more urgent climate crisis, charged Environmental Action Germany (DUH), a Berlin-based NGO, the CDU/CSU and SPD’s climate policies throw Germany back to the stagnant years of Merkel governments, particularly in the areas of buildings and transportation. The organisation, which has in the past successfully used legal injunctions to force the hand of German officials, says it will do the same to the new government if it has to.

‘The coalition is openly committed to implementing the EU Buildings Directive [which envisions Europe achieving a fully decarbonised building stock by 2050] as unambitiously as possible,’ says Barbara Metz of DUH. ‘Germany is increasingly bringing up the rear in Europe when it comes to climate protection in the building sector.’

Metz is referring to the Wärmewende, or clean heating transition, namely the countrywide phase out of fossil-fuel heating. The last government tried – and failed, mostly – to expedite this transition with ambitious measures to promote heat pumps: high-efficiency, low-emissions devices that rely on electricity to transfer heat. The idea, backed strongly by the Greens, was that instead of heating homes with fossil fuels, Germans should use heat pumps based on air or groundwater. In the end, after acrimony that contributed to the three-way coalition’s rupture years later, the heating law was scaled back as were hopes of significantly altering the means used to generate heat in homes and other buildings.

But the new government rejects even this watered-down law – and says it will scratch it completely, replacing it with another, yet weaker iteration.

‘When it comes to the heating transition,’ continues Metz, ’the worst case has happened. The abolishment of the heating law is fatal for climate protection and affordable heating. Without a clear focus on energy efficiency and savings, the new coalition will undermine climate protection in the building sector.’

Apparently, the new government’s chosen option will be new gas plants. The plan is to build up to 20 GW of gas power plant capacity by 2030 in order to create the framework to allow the installation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The contract is longwinded on the different forms of unproven and highly expensive ideas about culling negative emissions, including direct air capture.

Fridays for Future spared no ire: ‘Anyone who now expands and promotes new fossil fuel infrastructure on a grand scale will ensure that we become newly dependent on fossil fuels and strengthen autocrats.’ ‘Autocrats’ refers to the likes of Russia, which before the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 supplied Germany with most of its fossil gas.

Transportation: Going nowhere

As pleased as Germany can be that its rail system is being modernised, the new government is not correcting the years of negligent transportation polices that make the sector Germany’s emissions laggard. Once again, Germany will leave untouched the no-brainer that experts agree would save lives and emissions: a 130 km-an-hour speed limit on German autobahns. German Environment Agency (UBA) testing shows that a universal 130 km/h speed limit on German highways could reduce carbon emissions by about 1.9 million tonnes annually. (The 2035 EU combustion engine phase-out survived the coalition negotiations unscathed despite the ‘clear commitment’ to the automobile industry and jobs. In fact, this commitment may well override and scupper the fossil-burner phase-out.)

Moreover, untold billions of Germany’s new debt will go toward new and better and bigger highways – hardly a measure to discourage automobile travel. Actually, it seems the Germany’s new governors are expecting more of it.

In the same vein, the annual 450-million-euro subsidy for agricultural diesel is now back on the table – a plum for Germany’s farmer who took to the streets several years ago to protest its phase out. But for capping emissions, it’s another setback.

The list of sensible options that can promote climate neutrality and benefit society in other ways, too, is long – and mostly familiar. One of the most obvious is a tax on the super wealthy – namely those most responsible for the climate crisis. But that was never going to happen with the pro-business, friend-of-the well-to-do CDU/CSU. On the contrary.

The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union.