According to critics, the federal government is taking too much time with the introduction of the planned climate money for social compensation.
“The fact that the traffic light has agreed on climate money in its coalition agreement is an enormous success,” said Juso chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal to the newspapers of the Funke media group. Implementation in this legislative period must be the goal of all coalition partners.
With the climate money, the state revenue from the CO2 price should flow back to the citizens. According to the latest information, a corresponding system for this repayment will not be available until 2025.
“Climate money must come now”
The social policy and finance expert Martin Werding, who is a member of the “Wirtschaftswise” committee, sees such a social compensation payment as an important component of successful climate policy. “Households with low CO2 consumption and low incomes even benefit from this overall package,” Werding told the Funke newspapers. “Without climate money, public support for the CO2 phase-out will be massively endangered.”
Consumer advocate Ramona Pop also thinks 2025 is too late: “The climate money for private households promised by the traffic light coalition must come now,” said the head of the Federal Association of Consumer Centers (vzbv) to the editorial network Germany (RND). “It cannot be that the CO2 price continues to rise, but the promised compensation through climate money does not materialize.” If climate money were not introduced until 2025, consumers would have to be paid benefits retrospectively.
