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Germany’s coalition government has been accused of abandoning its climate targets after agreeing to scrap parts of a contentious heating law mandating the use of renewables in favour of a draft law allowing homeowners to rely on fossil fuels.
While the previous law required most newly installed heating systems to use at least 65% renewable energy, often with a heat pump, the amended legislation will allow households to keep using oil and gas.
It also removes a mandate for expert consultation when installing a new heating system.
The previous legislation, drawn up by the Greens and passed in 2023, was seen as one of the party’s boldest policy goals in the previous centre-left-led government under Olaf Scholz.
Although climate experts praised its ambitious targets, the legislation antagonised voters still bruised by the Covid-19 pandemic and worried about energy supply after the war in Ukraine led to Russian gas imports being halted and inflation rising.
The top-selling newspaper Bild ran weeks of negative headlines against “Habeck’s heating hammer”, referring to the legislation’s author, Robert Habeck of the Green party, then the vice-chancellor and economy minister.
The dispute poisoned relations in the coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and pro-business Free Democrats and is often called the beginning of the premature implosion of that government.
The far-right, climate-sceptic Alternative für Deutschland party raged against the 2023 law, in particular its promotion of heat pumps, attacking the Greens for “forcing” households to make expensive renovations and taking away their freedom to choose.
The new rules eliminating key planks of that law make good on a promise by the now chancellor, the conservative Friedrich Merz, during the election campaign a year ago and come after weeks of wrangling with the junior coalition partners, the SPD.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) insists the change will uphold the goal of cutting CO2 emissions from buildings, one of the top sources of planet-warming pollution, while giving homeowners more choice as to which technology to use.
But the Greens, now in the opposition and polling at about 12% nationally, denounced the new legislation as putting climate benchmarks in jeopardy.
“The CDU and SPD have made it abundantly clear today that climate protection is of no importance whatsoever to this coalition,” said the Greens parliamentary group co-leader Katharina Dröge. “The federal government has abandoned its climate targets.”
The bill foresees ramping up the share of relatively climate-friendly fossil fuels, at a minimum rate of 10% by 2029, progressively increasing until 2040. Germany has pledged to hit net zero emissions by 2045.
The economy minister, Katherina Reiche, rejected criticism that the planned change would undermine climate protection. “The aim of the heating law is to restore greater freedom of choice when replacing heating systems,” she told the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.
Reiche said homeowners would have a range of possibilities for heating including “hybrid models, biomass; yes, even gas and oil heating, but with an increasing proportion of biogas or bio-oil”.
She said: “The dilemma was that Robert Habeck’s heating law had unsettled homeowners. Sales of modern heating systems, heat pumps and modern gas boilers plummeted. People stopped building altogether.”
Germany, the EU’s top economy and most populous nation as well as its biggest polluter, still relies on oil and gas for nearly 80% of its heating.
The building and transport sectors are seen as the most significant drags on Germany’s progress toward its climate goals. Experts also note the scarcity of “greener” fuels such as biomethane on global markets, driving up their price.
Heat pumps are more expensive than gas-burning boilers, but in most countries they are cheaper to run. Germany subsidises 30-70% of the cost of a new heat pump, assistance that will remain in place until at least 2029 under the revised law.
Norway has 635 heat pumps for every 1,000 households, while Germany has 47 and the UK just 15.
