Linke on climate and energy

The Left considers moving away from fossil fuels and the combustion engine necessary. It wants to pair that shift with social protection so that no one is disadvantaged, such as people in villages or with little money.

The Left wants to move away from oil, gas and coal. It also wants to move away from the combustion engine. Nobody should lose out because of this. That includes people in villages who need a car. It also includes people with little money.

The platform points to dry fields, damaged forests and floods as effects of climate change. Dependence on gas and oil from other countries should not leave the state open to blackmail. The party rejects a heavy-handed approach. It mentions people in rural areas who rely on a car or cannot afford a heat pump. The Left describes its task as providing security during change.

The Left wants to end the use of fossil fuels and relies on a state-owned energy company. Together with municipal utilities, it is to combine affordable local and district heating with renewable energy.

The Left wants to move away from coal, oil and gas. For this, the state should have its own energy company. It should work together with local utilities. Heat and power should be affordable and come from clean energy.

The platform justifies leaving fossil fuels with the effects of climate change, such as parched soil, dead forests, heat waves and floods. The company is referred to as "Thüringen Energie." The party counts an affordable supply of electricity and heat among basic public services. In its view, energy suppliers should belong to cities and counties rather than shareholders.

The Left wants to open up roofs, railway embankments, parking lots and highway shoulders for solar installations. Agrivoltaics, meaning solar panels above farmed land, is to become standard after a pilot phase. The state would also subsidize balcony solar units.

The Left wants more power from the sun. Solar panels should go on big roofs and parking lots. Good farmland should stay farmland. Solar panels above fields should become normal. The state should support small solar units for balconies.

The state would map suitable surfaces and point their owners to available subsidies. High-quality soil would stay in farming, and farms would get help to combine harvests with energy yields. More solar installations would be allowed on and near listed historic buildings, if necessary by changing the monument protection law. The SolarInvest funding program supports photovoltaics, combined heat and power, and tenant electricity models. State-owned buildings would be fitted with solar panels.

The Left wants to create a transformation fund for the energy and heating transition. It would be financed through borrowing by state-owned entities. According to the program, a state contribution of 50 million euros could mobilize up to 700 million euros for climate-friendly infrastructure.

The Left wants a new pot of money for climate protection. The state should be able to take out loans for it. 50 million euros should turn into up to 700 million euros. The money is for rebuilding villages and towns. For example, there should be more district heating.

Borrowing for investment would run through bodies such as the state development company or the Thüringer Aufbaubank (the state's development bank). The Left wants to use the money to expand district heating, put solar panels on state-owned roofs and land, and make state buildings carbon neutral. It justifies the fund by saying a later changeover would cost even more. The state would work with municipalities, municipal providers, businesses and farmers and align its subsidies accordingly.

The Left wants a law that gives residents and municipalities a share of the earnings from wind turbines. The money is to stay in the region and raise support for expansion. The party rejects a blanket ban on wind turbines in forests.

Wind turbines make profits. The Left wants towns and residents to get part of them. Towns can use the money for daycare, schools or roads. This should make more people accept wind turbines. Wind turbines in forests should not be banned completely.

The basis is the wind energy participation law that the Left introduced in the state parliament. The revenue would be available locally for daycare centers, schools, roads or social infrastructure. The wind energy decree serves regional planning bodies as a guide for designating priority areas. The energy agency ThEGA advises municipalities on taking a financial share in wind farms. In land use, the Left wants to weigh benefit, necessity and possible harm against each other.

The Left wants to carry out the heating transition through local and district heating networks that municipalities or counties run for the common good. The networks would run on renewable energy and bill only the actual costs. Where networks make no sense, municipal utilities would install heat pumps and sell the heat.

Many homes need a new heating system. The Left does not want to leave people alone with this. Cities and towns should build heat networks. These networks deliver heat to many homes. The heat should come from renewable energy and be affordable.

As heat sources the program lists geothermal energy, large heat pumps, solar, biomass and industrial waste heat; surplus wind power would be used in heat storage instead of being curtailed. Existing combined heat and power plants would be converted into backup plants for times without wind and sun. Heat planning would be simplified, favor existing networks and otherwise first examine new local heat networks. Instead of widely scattered direct subsidies, municipal utilities would install heat pumps; homeowners would get help scaled to their means. Municipalities, the state and the federal government would fund the expansion, with the program naming Denmark as a model.

The Left wants Thuringia to be supplied entirely with renewable energy in the foreseeable future. Power should be generated where it is needed whenever possible. Storage, citizen energy cooperatives and the conversion of energy-intensive companies would be supported for this.

Thuringia should use only renewable energy. That is energy from sun, wind, water, the earth's heat and biomass. The energy should be made nearby. The Left wants to support storage for power and heat. Citizens should be able to start their own energy projects together.

A storage program would cover battery, heat, cold and pumped storage; storage facilities would be exempt from grid fees. The Left wants to limit transmission lines as far as possible, while industrial processes that cannot be electrified would be connected to hydrogen networks. The citizen energy fund would continue and be joined by a revolving fund for the investment costs of small cooperatives. Energy-intensive companies such as glass and paper makers would be guided through the switch to renewable energy. Research and training in renewables, storage and efficiency would be strengthened, and model municipalities would get support.

The Left wants to bring the grids for electricity, district heating and possibly gas back into public ownership across the board. In the medium term, generation and storage would also be in the hands of the federal government, states, municipalities and publicly controlled companies. A state-owned energy company would support the return to municipal ownership.

The Left wants the energy grids to belong to the state or the towns. This applies to electricity, district heating and maybe gas. Later, making energy should also be public. The state should set up its own energy company for this.

The program justifies the step with the goal of a social and ecological energy transition and with independence; it points to the earlier buyback of Thuringia's grids by municipalities and the state. Municipal suppliers of electricity, heat and gas as well as energy cooperatives would be strengthened. The planned state company would help cities, counties and towns take back generation and distribution and expand renewable energy, and would share in the financing. District heating would be expanded by the public sector.

The Left wants to use green hydrogen as one building block for cutting CO2 emissions in electricity, heating, transport, industry and agriculture. Battery trains are to run on rail lines without overhead wires, and buses and municipal vehicles are to switch to batteries or fuel cells.

The Left wants to use green hydrogen. This is a gas made with clean electricity. It should help cut CO2. Trains should run on batteries on some lines. Buses should get new engines too.

The program builds on the key points of a Thuringian hydrogen strategy from 2019. In the party's view, the whole chain must be considered, from technology through production, storage and infrastructure to use and logistics. Battery-electric trains are to run where no electrification is planned. The party sees buses and municipal vehicles with batteries or fuel cells as especially suited to rural areas. Incentives are meant to build up know-how in hydrogen production and battery manufacturing in Thuringia.

The Left wants to campaign at the federal level for a windfall profits tax so that crisis and speculative profits of energy companies go to the public purse. It also calls for a new grid fee structure so that electricity in the east and north no longer costs more than in the west and south.

Some companies earn a lot of money from high energy prices. The Left wants to tax these extra profits. The money should help towns and smaller companies. Electricity should also cost the same everywhere in Germany.

The program criticizes companies that, in its view, abuse industrial discounts on electricity prices or earn extra from price increases. Revenue from a windfall tax is to go into climate-friendly expansion in municipalities and benefit small and mid-sized businesses. At the federal level, the party also wants to discuss democratic control of the transmission grids and state oversight of energy prices. A new grid fee structure is meant to end regional differences in electricity prices.

The Left wants to treat environmental, social and health policy together because, according to the program, people on low incomes suffer more from noise and heat. Municipalities and social institutions are to get support, and heat protection plans are to be drawn up.

Poor people often suffer more from heat and noise. The Left wants to change that. Everyone should be able to live in healthy surroundings. Towns should get help with this. There should be plans to protect people from heat.

According to the program, people on low incomes cause the least CO2 but are least able to protect themselves from environmental burdens. Municipalities and the operators of social, health and educational facilities are to receive climate and energy managers. Matching funding programs are to be added. Heat protection plans are planned both for municipalities and for the state.