No money from the offshore wind industry for climate-damaging agricultural diesel
“The federal government’s plan to use the income from the offshore tenders in 2023 to receive subsidies for agricultural diesel contradicts the goals of the energy transition. The use of fossil fuels should be promoted through revenue from renewable energies. This plan is incomprehensible,” criticizes BWO managing director Stefan Thimm.
Thimm further: “The ecological tax reform actually works differently: taxes are designed in such a way that the steering effect is in the spirit of environmental protection.”
Currently, five percent of the funds from the offshore wind tenders are earmarked for financing marine nature conservation measures and promoting environmentally friendly fishing. From the industry's perspective, this use is at least related to the expansion of offshore wind and increases its acceptance.
Nevertheless, the industry has been appealing to the federal government for months to spend part of the revenue from the tenders from 2024 on financing the port infrastructure, building up production capacities and on research. “That would accompany the expansion of renewable energies,” explains Thimm. Help that is urgently needed because the legal expansion goals cannot be achieved with the current framework conditions.
The BWO categorically rejects retroactive interventions in the use of revenue from offshore wind tenders. “The industry is a burned out child here: a few years ago, subsequent changes to the legal framework for offshore wind expansion led to a halt to expansion,” warns Thimm.
Hintergrund:
The federal government announced on January 4th that it was withdrawing part of the cuts in aid for farmers planned for 2024 and wanted to use the funds from offshore tenders to subsidize agricultural diesel. In the 2023 tenders, these amounted to 670 million euros each for marine nature conservation and for promoting environmentally friendly fishing.