CDU on climate and energy

The CDU wants to push through a special economic zone for hydrogen and renewable energy across the entire coastal region. There, the use of these energy sources would be free of taxes and levies for 20 years. This is meant to speed up building a hydrogen industry, which according to the program requires much lower energy prices.

The CDU wants to set up a special zone on the coast. Companies there should use hydrogen and renewable energy. They should pay no taxes or charges on it for 20 years. This should help build a hydrogen industry. New industrial companies should also come to the coast.

The CDU wants to use Lower Saxony's renewable energy potential for a hydrogen industry and for sectors that want to become climate-neutral with hydrogen or offshore wind power. The exemption from taxes and levies would last 20 years and cover the entire coastal region. In addition, new industrial sites are to be actively promoted, relying on dependable and low-cost renewable energy on the coast.

The CDU wants to continue converting the steel industry to climate-neutral production together with the companies. Green hydrogen is to replace carbon in steelmaking; the energy supply should be both ecologically and economically sustainable.

The CDU wants steel to be made without harming the climate. Green hydrogen should replace coal for this. Green hydrogen is made with power from wind and sun. The CDU wants to support steel companies in this change. Workers should get further training.

The CDU backs the SALCOS project, which according to the program can save around 95 percent of the carbon load from steelmaking in the long run. The proposals of the "High Level Forum Stahl" are to be implemented and steel production tied into the state's hydrogen strategy. Bureaucratic hurdles in building a supply network are to be removed. Chemicals and refineries are also to become climate-neutral with green hydrogen, for which the program requires fast permits and competitive energy prices. Workers are to be trained, raw material supply secured, and the circular economy strengthened.

The CDU wants to pay farmers for storing CO2 in soils and forests and to strengthen their role as energy producers. Funding is to go to regional energy concepts, to linking biogas, wind and solar with green hydrogen, and to agrivoltaics. The platform says this will strengthen security of supply and decentralized energy.

Farmers should get money when they store CO2 in the soil. CO2 is a gas that harms the climate. Farmers should also produce power and heat. Fields should be usable for solar panels and farming at the same time.

Funding for carbon farming is to be modeled on carbon pricing. Farmers are to act as “energy farmers” by linking biogas, wind power and solar with green hydrogen and offering local heating. Municipalities are to draw up neighborhood energy concepts using all available renewables, with matching funding programs. For agrivoltaics, dual use of land for crops and electricity is to be made possible. Training on animal welfare, climate protection and productivity is to receive targeted support.

The CDU wants to develop a strategy for protecting peatlands together with those affected, conservation groups, and farmers. The program regards peatlands as important carbon stores that need to be rewetted to work. Rewetting is to happen only with compensation for disadvantages and after a participation process.

Peatlands store a lot of CO2. To do that, they have to be wet. The CDU wants to make a plan to protect peatlands. Farmers, residents, and environmental groups should have a say. People who are worse off should get compensation.

Work is to start where rewetting is easy to carry out. The conditions are full compensation for disadvantages, land consolidation, and a jointly developed concept. A peatland "real-world lab" is to be set up and linked with the state's peatland museums to build broader understanding of peatland protection. A funding program is to support peat moss production and research into substitute materials. In addition, the CDU plans land management that reuses brownfield sites, for example for solar arrays, and concentrates compensation measures, for instance along waterside buffer strips.

The CDU wants Lower Saxony to meet its entire demand for energy and hydrogen from renewable sources by 2040. In its view, climate protection should be carried out in an economically efficient way and remain open to all technologies. Businesses are to get room to act and support.

By 2040, Lower Saxony should use only clean energy. This also applies to hydrogen. The CDU does not want to prescribe one specific technology. Companies should get help with the switch.

The program names cutting total emissions as the path to greenhouse gas neutrality. Natural carbon sinks are to be preserved and enlarged. The CDU notes that these goals are laid down in the Lower Saxony Climate Protection Act, which it says it helped shape. In the party's view, climate policy needs an economic foundation and should not be driven by ideology. Municipalities, associations, farmers, businesses, and the public are to act together.

The CDU wants to invest at least one billion euros in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and CO2 reduction and set up a climate fund at the state-owned NBank. Lower Saxony is to become a "solar state." Sustainability is to be considered in all government decisions.

The CDU wants to spend a lot of money on climate protection. It should be at least one billion euros. A new fund should support climate-friendly projects. There should be more solar panels in the state.

The assessment of a law's consequences is to be developed into a sustainability check. For climate protection, transport, and state development, the CDU plans a new organizational structure meant to attract more planning staff. The state's climate and energy agency is to be strengthened so it can help companies transform their business models. A climate adaptation strategy is to be drawn up with the municipal associations. The state's contribution to the funding program for municipal energy management is to be doubled.

The CDU wants to make the state administration climate-neutral by 2040 and sees the public sector as a role model. To that end, state-owned buildings are to be renovated in a climate-friendly and cost-effective way. The state's vehicle fleet is also to become greenhouse-gas neutral.

The state's offices should be climate-neutral by 2040. That means they no longer harm the climate. To get there, the CDU wants to renovate the state's buildings. The state's cars should run clean too.

Ambitious emission reduction targets are to apply to the state administration. During upcoming renovations, administrative buildings are to be fitted with solar panels, green facades, and electric vehicle chargers wherever this is technically and economically feasible. Investment models such as "contracting" are to be used more often when renovating public buildings. The program justifies this with the public's expectation that the state and municipalities act in a climate-conscious way.

The CDU wants to scrap the obligation to carry out compensation and replacement measures when bike paths or renewable energy facilities are built. This covers generation facilities as well as transmission lines.

People who build often have to do something for nature elsewhere. This is called compensation. The CDU wants to drop this duty for bike paths. It should also end for clean energy facilities.

Compensation and replacement measures are requirements under nature conservation law that make up for impacts on nature and landscape at another location. According to the program, this obligation is to end for bike paths and for facilities that generate or transmit renewable energy. The demand appears in a list of measures with which the CDU wants to shape the path to climate neutrality.

The CDU wants to bring companies, universities, research institutes, business associations and policymakers together in decarbonization clusters. Part of the revenue from CO2 certificate trading is to go to forest owners and farmers so they can invest in climate-friendly projects.

The CDU wants businesses to emit less CO2. Companies and researchers should work together more closely. Forest owners and farmers should get money from CO2 trading. They should use it for climate projects.

The program calls for several clusters organized by industry. Universities, research institutions, state policymakers, business associations and companies are to exchange ideas within them. The CDU expects new production methods and greater competitiveness as a result. It also wants to advise companies on green IT, arguing that digitalization saves energy and resources, for example through video calls instead of business trips.

The CDU wants to provide more money for flood protection on the coast and inland and to speed up planning with a dedicated law. It cites climate change, rising sea levels and the fact that about 14 percent of the state's area is at risk from storm surges.

The CDU wants to protect the state better against floods. There should be more money for this. A new law should make planning faster. The dikes on the coast should become stronger.

Together with the dike, water and soil associations, an integrated coastal protection management system is to be set up. The protective role of the North Sea islands for the mainland is to be included in medium-term financial planning. Building and maintaining dikes is to get a special status and no longer require nature conservation offsets. The CDU wants to gain additional flood plains through incentives for farmers and landowners. Coastal research is to be networked more closely.

The CDU wants to do without gas, oil and coal from Russia by the end of 2023. To that end, the ports of Wilhelmshaven and Stade are to be upgraded together with the federal government for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and biogas, and LNG terminals are to be built as fast as possible.

The CDU wants to stop buying energy from Russia. This should happen by the end of 2023. Two ports are to be expanded for this. Ships should deliver liquid gas there. This liquid gas is called LNG.

The program points to the war in Ukraine and the rise in energy prices. The goal is a secure, diversified and affordable supply; Lower Saxony is to become Germany's leading energy state. Port infrastructure is to grow so that various energy sources from around the world can be delivered and distributed. In the medium term, natural gas is to be replaced by green energy sources such as hydrogen.

The CDU wants to allow more conventional natural gas production in Lower Saxony and issue new permits. It argues that gas produced locally under German standards has a better carbon footprint than gas transported over long distances.

The CDU wants to produce more natural gas in Lower Saxony. There should be new permits for this. It stays banned in the Wadden Sea. It also stays banned in water protection areas.

Opportunities to explore conventional natural gas deposits are to be widened. According to the program, sensitive zones of Lower Saxony's Wadden Sea and water protection areas remain off limits. The measure is tied to the goal of reducing dependence on a small number of supplier countries.

The CDU wants to return existing gas storage facilities in Lower Saxony to public ownership if security of supply requires it. It intends to use every legal avenue to do so.

Gas storage sites hold gas for the winter. Many of them belong to companies. The CDU wants the state to take them back if needed. This should keep the gas supply safe.

The transfer is subject to a condition: it is to happen when it is necessary for a secure supply. It would affect facilities that already exist and are located in Lower Saxony. The plan is one of the measures with which the CDU wants to reduce dependence in the gas supply.

The CDU wants to sharply increase production of green hydrogen and fund the implementation of the state's hydrogen strategy. It also plans a research cluster for storage technologies with neighboring countries and a focus on synthetic fuels.

The CDU wants to make much more green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is made with power from wind and sun. The state should pay for this. Researchers should develop new ways to store energy.

Green hydrogen is to be produced mainly with power from offshore and onshore wind and from solar energy on the coast; the program calls it one of the state's most promising energy projects. A cluster for storage technologies such as power-to-gas is to be set up with neighboring countries to the north and west, accompanied by company partnerships. Power-to-liquid turns renewable electricity into liquid fuels, and the CDU wants to give it special emphasis.

The CDU sees permit requirements and long planning procedures as the main obstacle to expanding renewable energy. It wants to create a central state office for permits, reduce requirements and digitalize procedures.

Wind and solar plants need a permit. The CDU says this takes too long. It wants fewer requirements. A new state office should help local agencies. The procedures should become digital.

The new office is to support local authorities, approve cross-regional projects itself and monitor implementation. Uniform rules are to apply to species protection in the procedure. The CDU also wants to make it easier, through federal law, to convert power, gas, hydrogen and heating networks. A Lower Saxony price bonus for electricity and gas produced in the state is planned. Citizens are to be able to invest in energy projects more easily and share in their returns.

The CDU commits to the climate targets and wants to double wind power capacity in Lower Saxony in the coming years, both offshore and onshore. Turbines are to be built in natural areas rather than close to housing; to allow this, it wants to relax species protection in federal law.

The CDU wants twice as much power from wind. Wind turbines should stand farther away from homes. They should also be allowed in forests. Protected areas stay free of them. Towns should get more money from wind power.

Fixed minimum distances to settlements are to be developed further. The CDU wants to allow turbines in forests, especially on land damaged by storms or pests, but not in protected areas. Through the Bundesrat, the Federal Nature Conservation Act is to be opened up so that absolute species protection no longer blocks construction. Small turbines between 15 and 50 meters tall are to go through a simplified building permit procedure. Sites along highways, rail lines and in industrial areas as well as repowering are to be used. Compensation measures are to be made only in money in the future, to spare farmland.

The CDU considers the potential of photovoltaics untapped so far and wants to increase its expansion significantly. Funding programs for rooftops of homes and commercial buildings are to become simpler and more worthwhile for builders.

The CDU wants more power from the sun. People who put solar panels on roofs should get funding more easily. Solar plants should also stand along highways and rail lines. Farmland should not get more expensive because of this.

The state and municipalities are to get more leeway in regional planning for solar sites. Agriculture and food security are to receive special attention so that no competition for land arises and soil does not become more expensive for farmers. A "Task Force Solarkraft" (solar power task force) is to support ground-mounted plants along major transport corridors in planning and construction.

The CDU regards biogas and hydropower as steady energy sources that complement wind and solar. It wants to use more agricultural residues for biogas, examine hydropower potential and fund geothermal exploration.

The CDU wants to use more biogas. Biogas is made from manure, for example. Hydropower should also deliver more electricity. Heat from the ground should be explored and funded.

For biogas from residues such as liquid manure, straw or grassland growth, state regulations are to be adapted and changes proposed at the federal level, such as incentives in the Renewable Energy Sources Act. Collection pipelines are to feed local biogas into the gas grid. Combined heat and power plants are to be curtailed only as a last resort in redispatch so that regional heating networks stay supplied. On hydropower, the program points to the Bannetze research power plant and studies by TU Braunschweig. For geothermal energy, exploration funding programs and pilot projects with utilities and the housing industry are planned.

The CDU wants to expand storage so that wind and solar power is available even when output is low. It also plans an efficiency strategy for all consumption sectors and more energy advice.

Wind and sun do not always deliver power. So the CDU wants more energy storage. Households should get money for their own storage units. Everyone should also use less energy. There should be more advice for this.

The program relies on a mix of storage technologies, including biogas and reservoirs in the Harz mountains, and wants to support research on storage and battery recycling. Private households are to receive a subsidy when buying storage units. The efficiency strategy is to involve industry, skilled trades, public administration and the population. Smart heating controls are to be funded; according to the program, they can save up to 30 percent of private energy use. Smart grids are to manage feed-in and demand better.

The CDU wants to expand local energy generation and support municipal utilities in doing so. Municipal heat planning is to be introduced, and heating networks with a high share of renewable energy are to be supported.

The CDU wants more energy to be produced locally. City utilities should get help with this. Towns should plan how homes will get heat in the future. Whole neighborhoods should be supplied together.

Municipal utilities are to get help modernizing grids and integrating renewable energy. Together with the NBank, the state's development bank, decentralized operator and investment models are to be set up. For new residential areas, energy supply is to be planned for the whole neighborhood as a standard. Heating is to become climate neutral in a way that is open to all technologies. The CDU wants to convert existing gas networks for transporting and storing green hydrogen.