The federal government will not raise the CO₂ price for heating and fueling in 2027. This is reported by the German Press Agency dpa, citing participants of the coalition committee on Tuesday evening.
Thus the CO₂ price remains at 55 to 65 euros per tonne of CO₂, which is produced when fossil fuels are burned in combustion engines or heating systems. The revenues from the CO₂ price flow into the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF), with which the federal government intends to finance climate protection measures. Last year, however, it decided to finance the gas storage levy from the KTF as well, thereby making fossil gas cheaper with funds intended for climate protection.
Led by the Union parliamentary group chairpersons Jens Spahn (CDU) and Alexander Hoffmann (CSU), they informed the Union MPs on Wednesday that, “in view of the currently high energy prices,” the CO₂ price would not be increased. “Thus we avoid additional burdens of up to 2.8 billion euros for citizens and the economy in 2027,” they wrote in a text message to the MPs, which the has. The SPD parliamentary group leadership also expressed relief at the relief.
This relief has an immediate impact on the federal budget. In the budget planning, the Federal Ministry of Finance under Lars Klingbeil (SPD) had assumed a CO₂ price of 80 euros per tonne for 2027 and projected revenues of 21.3 billion euros. In 2026, the ministry expects 16.7 billion euros.
The agreement opens a billion-dollar hole
That means: If the CO₂ price stays at its current level, “these around 4 billion euros will be missing for financing the transformation,” as physicist and director of the think tank Zukunft KlimaSozial Brigitte Knopf writes on LinkedIn. “It would be fatal if that were at the expense of subsidies for building retrofits” – i.e., the funds intended to promote the installation of climate-friendly heat pumps.
How Klingbeil plans to fill the hole forming in the climate fund was left open by a spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance in response to ’s inquiry. At the same time, the government is using growing shares of the KTF to lower energy prices for industry. “What is emerging is a gradual redeployment: From the Climate and Transformation Fund to an Energy Subsidies Fund,” worries economist Niklas Illenseer from the think tank Dezernat Zukunft on LinkedIn. Lowering energy prices for industry does not solve the problem. “If you subsidize one thing without decarbonizing the other in large steps, you are just buying time – and time is expensive to pay.”
Greens politician Lisa Badum demanded: Instead of stabilizing the price, the coalition should introduce a socially graded climate money that would be paid out to citizens. “That would be real relief for low-income earners and at the same time an incentive for climate-friendly behavior. Unfortunately, the Merz government simply does not care about socially just climate policy,” she told dpa.
The agreement on the CO₂ price for 2027 became necessary because the corresponding law sets a price path only up to 2026. Originally it was planned that from 2027 an EU-wide CO₂ price would apply to buildings and transport. Especially Eastern European states such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia had opposed this and achieved a postponement to 2028. CO₂ emissions in the electricity sector and in industry are already priced at EU level.
