Federal Environment Ministry reviews National Allocation Plan
Germany will tighten its climate protection targets again. In the negotiations between the Federal Environment Ministry and the EU Commission over the National Allocation Plan for the second trading period (NAP II) a basic agreement was reached over fundamental questions. However, with regard to the emission cap the Commission maintains its former position.
Within the framework of the European emissions trading scheme, the Federal Environment Ministry and the EU Commission had a number of very constructive meetings on the German National Allocation Plan II during the last few weeks. General agreement was reached over fundamental issues. The Commission in particular wants to take up Germany's suggestions for a notably increased transparency and standardisation of the method to control the individual allocation plans of member states. This concerns the transparency and standardisation of both the Commission's control procedures as well as national structures and the procedures for drawing up the so far very different national allocation plans.
Furthermore the Commission basically accepts that Germany changes its allocation system to benchmarks. The new system will replace the long-term guarantees criticised by the Commission (e.g. "10 + 4 rule").
There is also general agreement on some other changes in the German NAP II (e.g. consideration of smaller companies). Details will be discussed with the Commission during the process of drawing up the new German NAP II which has now become necessary.
The Commission and the Federal Government could not reach agreement on only one out of seven issues: the data which the calculations for the German emission budget has to be based on. The Commission sees no reason why it should change the basis of calculation which is applied as standard to all other member states and insists on the cap of an annual 453 million tonnes of CO2 for Germany. Merely an additional three million tonnes could be approved of if Germany wanted to include the steel industry's emissions. Pursuant to the Emissions Trading Directive, emissions from the steel industry were not considered so far.
The Federal Government still considers the Commission's data base as problematic. Owing to the fundamental importance of the European emissions trading scheme and the rather small difference of approximately 2 percent between the cap calculated by the Commission (453 + 3 million tonnes) and the cap calculated by the Federal Government (462 + 3 million tonnes), Germany will accept the Commission's decision and not lodge an action with the European Court of Justice.
As a result Germany's emissions will be significantly reduced:
NAP I:
Minus 2 million tonnes of C02 to 499 million tonnes (- 0.5%)
First draft of NAP II without secure data:
Minus 17 million tonnes of C02 to 482 million tonnes (- 3.4%)
Revised NAP II based on secure data:
Minus 34 million tonnes of C02 to 462 + 3 million tonnes (- 6.8%)
(compared to number of plants in NAP I even minus 48 million tonnes of C02 to 451 million tonnes, as more plants with an additional total of 14 million tonnes are incorporated into NAP II. Compared to NAP I this is almost - 10%)
Commission decision:
Minus 43 million tonnes of C02 to 453 + 3 million tonnes (- 8.6%) (compared to number of plants included in NAP I therefore minus 57 million tonnes / - 11.5%)
Considering these numbers Germany has made considerable progress in climate protection and CO2 emission reduction with its second Allocation Plan (2008 – 2012) compared to the first Allocation Plan (2005 – 2007). It will now definitely meet the climate protection targets of the Kyoto Protocol (minus 21% by 2012 compared to the base year 1990/current status: approximately – 19%).