Introducing the Special Climate Fund: What’s Inside and What Does it Mean?

The Senate has introduced the law for a special climate fund. Only: Nobody knows exactly what that means in the end.

Will soon have a lot of ashes in the account: Finance Senator Stefan Evers (CDU) Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Annette Riedl

What Finance Senator Stefan Evers (CDU) presented last week under the title “Special Fund “Climate Protection, Resilience and Transformation” is a classic black box: Ultimately, nobody knows what’s inside, but everyone has their theories – and fears . Some even believe that it is just a trick on the part of the Senate to be able to spend new money for the old purposes, which would otherwise not be possible thanks to the debt brake that is actually in force.

At least the price of this surprise box seems to be clear: 5 billion euros now, maybe another 5 billion on top of that from 2026. But that’s not the whole truth either. After all, this money is much more expensive in Berlin, depending on the conditions under which the corresponding loans are taken out, how consistently these debts are serviced and repaid, and how the state’s income develops at the same time. No one should rely on tax surpluses of the kind that have been bubbling up in recent years.

Of course, one can regard it as fundamentally problematic that the country will slip even deeper into debt along this path. On the other hand, there is an old truth: the state cannot go bankrupt. And even if public debt increases private wealth through interest payments: In principle, achieving climate neutrality is a goal that should be clearly above it. With a broken climate, even a balanced budget is no longer of much use.

But then, of course, the question arises as to whether the special fund really brings us that much closer to climate neutrality – and to adapting to the already inevitable climate change. And nobody really knows that today. Left parliamentary group leader Carsten Schatz rightly criticized the lack of specific information on the climate protection measures that are to be financed from the special fund. More than “rough content-related keywords” have not yet been heard.

In fact, one of the most important questions that is now in the room is: will measures that directly or indirectly serve climate protection be settled from the special debts sooner or later? While the corresponding funds in the regular budget are reallocated towards less climate-relevant things?

What’s new, what’s old?

It is now said that measures by the special fund should not replace ongoing programs. But the “rough keywords in terms of content” that are used in the mobility area, such as “improving the quality of public transport services”, “more investment in walking and cycling” or “accelerated expansion of CO₂-poor fleet of vehicles for the public service” are not to be expected. All of this can already be found in one way or another in the transport administration’s portfolio.

The Taxpayers’ Union (which of course has its own agenda) puts the assumption in the room, in the future ramshackle school windows could also be renovated from the loan-financed special fund, because the renovation of buildings has a climate benefit – but such investments should have been made long ago without borrowing. And now there really is a risk that the money will go to measures that have little to do with the climate.

It is good that Parliament, in the form of the main committee, can have a say in exactly what the billions will be used for. In any case, the parliamentarians should take this role seriously and, in the case of the coalition factions, not simply nod to the bills that the Senate is showing them.