CDU on climate and energy

The CDU calls for an immediate halt to the phase-out of free CO2 allowances in the European Emissions Trading System. The cancellation of allowances in the Market Stability Reserve is also to be stopped and revised. The reason given is the competitiveness of the chemical and basic materials industry.

Companies in the EU need allowances for their CO2 emissions. They get some of them for free so far. Under EU plans, that free share will shrink. The CDU wants to stop this right away. It wants to protect the chemical industry in the state.

According to the program, the chemical and basic materials industry suffers from high energy prices and competitive disadvantages that threaten some firms' survival. The CDU wants to press the federal government and the EU for better conditions. The emissions trading rules are to be revised with strategically important sectors and key industries in mind. Saxony-Anhalt is to remain a chemical state well beyond 2030. Raw material extraction, such as potash and salt, is also to stay competitive.

The CDU rejects a blanket ban on combustion engines and backs openness to all technologies. It wants to fund research on alternative fuels, hydrogen networks and storage, and to keep the tax break for diesel.

The CDU is against a general ban on combustion engines. It wants to allow different technologies. The state should fund research on new fuels. Diesel should keep its lower tax. Fuels with less CO2 should get support.

Research on alternative fuels, the circular economy, hydrogen networks and storage technologies is to be funded. In the CDU's view, ideological limits must not hold back progress. The so-called Dieselprivileg, the lower tax rate on diesel fuel, is to stay untouched. Instead, the CDU wants to support fuels that reduce CO2 emissions.

The CDU wants to launch an initiative to split Germany's single electricity bidding zone into several regional zones. The cheap wind power generated in the state should thereby translate into lower prices for industry and households in Saxony-Anhalt.

Today all of Germany has the same wholesale price for electricity. The CDU wants to split Germany into several price areas. Saxony-Anhalt makes a lot of cheap wind power. So electricity should become cheaper there.

The platform points out that wholesale electricity currently costs the same in Saxony-Anhalt as in Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg because the price is set by supply and demand nationwide. At the same time, it says companies in the state are less profitable than those in the economically strong regions of southern Germany. The goal is a model with several zones that benefits businesses and households in the state.

The CDU gives security of supply and affordable prices top priority in energy policy. It welcomes the industrial electricity price, wants grid fees equalized nationwide, and wants baseload power plants dismantled only once replacements are in place.

The CDU wants electricity to always be available and affordable. It likes the cheaper electricity price for industry. Grid costs should be shared equally across Germany. Old power plants should only go when there is a replacement.

Before baseload power plants are dismantled, the platform demands concrete solutions for storage, grids and replacement plants; independent supply is to be part of a resilience strategy. The CDU sees high energy costs as a disadvantage for Germany as a business location and wants to review whether the industrial electricity price is enough. Uniform grid fees are meant to relieve regions with especially many renewable installations, such as Saxony-Anhalt, and make other regions bear more of the cost of grid expansion. The party also intends to push for affordable energy at the federal and EU level.

The CDU wants every wind turbine to have the consent of the local municipality and to benefit it. It rejects fixed land-area targets for wind power beyond 2027 and is skeptical of turbines in forests. All forms of energy are to be supported on equal terms.

The CDU says the local town must agree to every wind turbine. The party rejects fixed targets for wind areas after 2027. It is skeptical of wind turbines in forests. All kinds of energy should get the same support.

Area contribution targets are legal requirements for how much of a state's land must be designated for wind energy. The platform demands that technical solutions not overburden citizens financially and be explained early during public participation. It says the energy transition can only succeed together with grid expansion, storage and planning certainty. The state's acceptance and participation law, which gives municipalities a share of revenues, is to be reviewed for effectiveness.

The CDU wants to keep the agreed coal phase-out by 2038, citing reliability toward the affected regions and companies. Structural funding is to be used in a targeted way to create new prospects in the coal areas.

Germany plans to stop using coal by 2038. The CDU wants to keep this date. The coal regions should be able to rely on it. Funding should create new opportunities there.

The platform calls the 2038 phase-out a politically and legally agreed consensus. The funds set aside for it are to flow into the affected areas in a targeted way. The CDU wants to keep supporting the material use of lignite, meaning its use as a raw material rather than as fuel.

The CDU wants to make it more attractive to generate and store electricity yourself and pass it on to neighbors. According to the platform, this would ease the load on grids, lower costs and increase acceptance. Smart grids and a fair grid fee structure are meant to make this possible.

People who make their own electricity should be able to share it with neighbors. The CDU wants to support electricity storage. Power grids should become smarter. This should lower costs and ease the load on grids.

The platform regards electricity storage as essential to making good use of renewable energy and wants it supported. It envisions smart grids with bidirectional charging, in which electric cars, for example, can feed power back into the grid. Grid fees are to be designed so that investments in storage and decentralized supply pay off. The construction cost contribution is to be dropped for storage systems that help stabilize the grid.

The CDU wants a power plant for natural gas and hydrogen to be built and the industrial and chemical parks quickly connected to the national hydrogen network. It also backs new technologies such as carbon capture and storage, batteries, heat storage and synthetic fuels.

The CDU wants a power plant for natural gas and hydrogen to be built. Industry should quickly be connected to the hydrogen network. The party also backs new technology. This includes capturing and storing the gas CO2.

The platform regards green hydrogen as indispensable for the industry of the future. Besides the power plant, it calls for in-state production capacity, research and a stronger Central German hydrogen network region. The CDU welcomes the Carbon Dioxide Storage Act passed at the federal level in November 2025 and wants to monitor its implementation regarding transport infrastructure. In this way, industrial development and jobs are to be combined with climate goals.

The CDU wants municipal heat planning to remain legally sound, affordable and technically feasible. It relies on domestic renewable raw materials as well as geothermal energy and waste heat. Biogas and biomethane plants are to be preserved and expanded further.

Towns and cities plan how people will heat in the future. The CDU wants these plans to be affordable and doable. It relies on raw materials from the region, such as biogas and wood. There should be more biogas plants.

The platform names biomethane and wood chip plants, and the party wants to look into using EU funds. In densely built urban areas, where heat pumps are said to be hard to install because of spacing rules and noise, geothermal loop technology and the use of waste heat are to be supported. The platform describes biogas plants as a flexible, controllable and essential part of the energy transition. Feeding biomethane into the natural gas grid is to be made easier, including through changes to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and gas market law.

The CDU wants to expand photovoltaics but rejects a solar mandate for new buildings and roof renovations. Good farmland is to remain reserved for food production. The state is to use its own roofs and facades and thereby set an example.

The CDU wants more solar panels. But nobody should be forced to put solar panels on their roof. Good fields should stay for growing food. The state should use its own roofs for solar panels.

Investment in photovoltaics and solar thermal energy is to be made easier through low-bureaucracy rules for operating systems and selling the electricity. On state buildings, the plan includes roofs and facades as well as solutions such as PV fences. Ground-mounted systems are to be built mainly on fallow and former industrial or military sites and on low-yield soil. Added to this is agri-PV, meaning land used for farming and solar power at the same time.

The CDU wants to protect cities better against heat, modernize water management and limit land consumption. It justifies this with the effects of climate change on cities, groundwater and surface waters.

The climate is changing. The CDU wants to protect cities better from heat. Water should be stored better. Less new land should be built on.

Heat protection is to carry more weight in urban development funding, and projects for storing water are to be supported. The CDU wants to move dikes back where costs and benefits make that seem sensible. An action plan for water management is planned that involves land users and landowners. The EU Water Framework Directive is to be implemented "with a sense of proportion." Land that is already sealed should be used for several purposes, and brownfield sites should be brought back into use. Unsealing projects are to get their own funding, also to help municipalities carry out heat protection plans.

The CDU wants to roll back climate and environmental requirements for industry that it considers impractical and ideological. It opposes the EU Taxonomy Regulation, the supply chain law, additional CO₂ charges, and blanket chemical bans because, in its view, they endanger jobs and investment.

The EU makes rules for climate and the environment. The CDU thinks many of them are bad for industry. It wants to take such rules back. It is against new charges on CO₂ and against blanket bans on chemicals. This is how it wants to protect jobs in industry.

The platform ties the demand to the goal of preventing deindustrialization. In talks with the federal government and the European Commission, the CDU wants to push for an environmental policy it describes as realistic and business-friendly, built on openness to all technologies. In its account, this serves the climate, the business location, and employment alike.