Germany is aiming for a green start to 2021 by shutting down a coal-fired power plant and imposing a CO2 price on transportation.
Starting January 1, 2021, the government will charge 25 euros ($ 30) per ton of carbon dioxide emissions released by the transportation and heating sectors.
The price rose from the 10 euros per tonne initially proposed by the government, a figure that Germany’s Green Party, environmentalists and scientists called too low.
The price will increase to 55 euros in 2025 and will be decided by auction starting in 2026.
The government hopes to collect € 56.2 billion from companies that buy the new carbon certificates or “pollution rights” over the next four years.
Also on Friday, the 300-megawatt Niederaussem D unit power plant near Cologne, which runs on lignite (brown coal), becomes the first to shut down as part of Germany’s coal phase-out by 2038.
Energy giant RWE, which has operated the plant since it was built in 1968, said that decommissioning the facility, as required by Germany’s 2020 coal exit law, was “a difficult step” that would lead to loss. of about 300 jobs.
Under the same legislation, several black or hard coal-fired power plants will be shut down starting in January, removing a combined 4.7 gigawatt capacity from the market.
The € 25 carbon price will not “make the necessary contribution” to help Germany meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate pact, said Christiane Averbeck, director of the environmental group Climate Alliance Germany.
Averbeck said the carbon tax, however, allowed too many exceptions for “entire branches of industry” and was set too low to really change behaviors.
Climate activists, including the youth-led Fridays for Future movement, have urged the government to accelerate the exit of coal from Germany, saying the current timetable to close all coal plants by 2038 is not ambitious enough.
