FDP on climate and energy

The FDP opposes ending lignite mining before the legally set phase-out year of 2038. It points to the particular economic challenges in eastern Germany.

Germany plans to stop mining lignite coal by 2038. Some people want to stop earlier. The FDP is against that. It is thinking of the economy in eastern Germany.

The program notes that the eastern states have not everywhere reached the West's economic strength since 1990 and also lag in wealth. For the many small and mid-sized firms there, the FDP considers tax cuts, less red tape, regulatory sandboxes and practical business and research funding especially important. It wants to keep 2038 as the phase-out date.

The FDP wants to phase out electricity and energy taxes and eventually replace them entirely with the CO2 price. Grid fees would also be reformed and grid expansion made cheaper so that energy prices fall.

Electricity and energy should become cheaper. The FDP wants to cut the electricity tax sharply. Later, only the CO2 price should apply. The vehicle tax should also end. New power lines should be built above ground.

The electricity tax would first drop to the EU minimum rate; within the EU, the FDP would push to abolish it and to phase the minimum rates on heating and motor fuels down to zero. The motor vehicle tax would be abolished in the medium term. Digital grids and dynamic grid fees would shift demand to where capacity is available. New lines would generally be built overhead, and only grids that are actually needed would be built. The mandatory grid connection would end, so new plants are connected only if that serves the system and is profitable.

The FDP wants to end support for new wind and solar plants under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and scrap statutory expansion paths. New gas power plants would be built via a capacity market, and more natural gas would be produced in Germany.

New wind and solar plants should no longer get subsidies. They should pay for themselves on the market. The FDP wants new gas power plants. Germany should produce more of its own natural gas, including by fracking.

The program argues subsidies are no longer justified because renewables already supply more than 60 percent of electricity. Market-based payment is meant to ensure plants are built only where grids and storage are sufficient. The FDP rejects state-guaranteed purchase prices. The capacity market should be simple and unbureaucratic. For domestic gas production, the program names the gas field off Borkum and fracking.

The FDP wants to make building new nuclear power plants and using nuclear fusion legally possible in Germany, without subsidies. Shut-down nuclear plants could also return to the grid if their operators choose.

The FDP wants to allow nuclear power in Germany again. Companies should be allowed to build new kinds of nuclear plants. Old nuclear plants should be allowed to run again. The state should not pay for this.

Nuclear law would be changed so that new-generation reactors can be built with legal certainty; the program names dual-fluid reactors, thorium molten salt reactors and small modular reactors. Fusion would get its own legal framework outside nuclear law. The FDP describes these technologies as climate-friendly.

The FDP wants to reach the European climate targets mainly through a single EU emissions trading system and to scrap additional climate rules. Revenues would be returned to citizens per capita as a climate dividend. In the party's view, the carbon price cuts greenhouse gases where it is cheapest.

The FDP relies on emissions trading for the climate. Companies buy permits for the CO2 they emit. The number of permits falls every year. Other climate rules should go. All citizens should get the money back.

Regulations that, in the FDP's view, add nothing for the climate because emissions are already capped would be abolished. In the long run the party seeks international emissions trading with a global carbon price. The climate dividend would be paid out directly as a flat amount. Carbon capture, storage and use (CCS and CCU) would be allowed on equal terms; anyone removing greenhouse gases from the air would receive a free certificate. The EU climate target would gain a separate target for negative emissions.

The FDP wants to move Germany's target year for climate neutrality from 2045 to the EU-wide year of 2050. In its view, national targets add no climate benefit under European emissions trading, and industry would gain time to adapt.

Germany wants to be climate neutral by 2045. The FDP wants to move this goal to 2050. That is the EU's goal. The FDP says companies get more time to change this way.

The change would be made in the Climate Protection Act. The platform argues that plants could run five years longer and that new technologies would have more time to mature. In the FDP's view this strengthens companies, keeps jobs and makes costly subsidy programs unnecessary. Energy-intensive industry in particular is meant to benefit.

The FDP wants the Heizungsgesetz (heating law) to expire completely and to reach climate-friendly heating through carbon certificate trading rather than detailed rules. A climate dividend and much lower energy taxes are meant to cushion the costs.

The FDP wants to end the heating law. The state should not decide how people heat. Instead, CO2 emissions should have a price. People should get money back. Heating with wood should stay legal.

Carbon certificate trading is to replace many individual requirements as a market-based tool. To offset social costs, the platform calls for a climate dividend and a sharp cut in energy taxation. The FDP rejects any obligation to connect to district heating networks. Wood heating is to remain possible, and requirements for fireplaces and stoves are to be reduced.