“Climate bonus” scheme could increase Germans’ acceptance of energy transition - survey

Acceptance of the energy transition in Germany would greatly improve with the introduction of a compensation mechanism for citizens to counter cost increases caused by CO2 pricing, price comparison website Verivox found in a survey. The German government’s “climate bonus” scheme would lead to 40 percent of respondents looking more positively at energy transition policies, Verivox said. The scheme was promised in the coalition treaty but has been indefinitely delayed by internal debates and a tight federal budget. The scheme is supposed to use funds generated by Germany’s national carbon pricing system in the transport and heating sector to refund citizens to a certain extent and thus steer money away from carbon-intensive activities. In the survey, 11 percent said such a step would let them see the energy transition “much more positively”, while 29 percent said they would regard it “slightly more positively”. Among those aged 18 to 29, nearly 60 percent said they would look more optimistically at the energy transition if the scheme was introduced.

“A climate bonus would help those who up to now have struggled to benefit from the energy system’s transformation, for example because they are tenants and cannot influence construction measures” on their homes, said Verivox’s energy expert Thorsten Storck. Nearly 60 percent of respondents backed a differentiation based on income. Of these, more than 80 percent said there should be an income ceiling for who is eligible to receive the compensation funding.