The German government plans to scale back a range of subsidy programmes financed through its Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) over the coming years, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The fund finances measures to help Germany meet its climate goals. It supports programmes ranging from subsidies for heat pumps and electric vehicles to energy efficiency and industrial decarbonization.<\/p>\n
The ministry said that, in principle, funding that has not yet been committed will be reduced by 30%, although no programmes will be halted altogether. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Cabinet still must approve the measures.<\/p>\n
The KTF is financed mainly through revenues from Germany’s national carbon pricing system and the European Union’s Emissions Trading System. It will also receive \u20ac100 billion ($114 billion) over the coming years from Germany’s \u20ac500 billion special infrastructure and climate neutrality fund, equivalent to \u20ac10 billion annually.<\/p>\n
The government has already announced that subsidies for installing heat pumps and other climate-friendly heating systems will be reduced in the coming years, with greater means-testing of applicants.<\/p>\n
Other planned cuts will affect programmes supporting climate-friendly transport, energy-efficient urban redevelopment, energy research, energy-efficiency advisory services and subsidies for low-emission commercial vehicles, buses and rail transport, according to Cabinet documents seen by dpa.<\/p>\n
The government described the approach as an “intelligent lawnmower” strategy, referring to broad reductions across programmes.<\/p>\n
The Finance Ministry noted that annual budget allocations for subsidy programmes are typically not fully spent within a single year.<\/p>\n
Measures deemed strategically important, including a planned discounted industrial electricity price for energy-intensive companies, will be exempt from the cuts, and funding for measures to reduce energy costs will actually increase next year.<\/p>\n
The ministry said the Climate and Transformation Fund must contribute to efforts to consolidate the federal budget as Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil seeks to close multibillion-euro funding gaps.<\/p>\n
Under the government’s draft 2027 budget, \u20ac2.7 billion in emissions trading revenue that would otherwise have flowed into the fund will instead be redirected to the core federal budget.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups have accused Klingbeil of raiding the fund to plug budget shortfalls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German government plans to scale back a range of subsidy programmes financed through its Climate and Transformation…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":936609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[377364,34403,20569,25821,142318,241400,117,377362,377363,50,256163,103],"class_list":["post-936608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-climate-neutrality","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-finance-ministry","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-german-chancellor","tag-german-government","tag-germany","tag-lars-klingbeil","tag-minister-of-finance","tag-news","tag-transformation-fund","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116924189730298424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}