Representatives of German corporate and government landlords told a gathering in Berlin that the country’s focus on reducing the energy consumption of buildings had failed, according to Euractiv.
Germany is preparing for early elections to be held on 23 February due to the collapse of the coalition government of the Social Democrats, Greens and liberals. Ahead of the election campaign, representatives of the housing sector called for a change in policy regarding the decarbonisation of buildings.
Meanwhile, Axel Gedaschko, president of the German Association of Housing and Property Companies, accused the Greens of raising transition costs.
Climate protection in existing buildings, as we are currently doing it, is a ‘mission impossible’. […] Anyone who is not completely blind will recognise that the historical focus […] on energy savings has simply failed.
Building renovation rates were “stuck at just 0.7% for years,” despite subsidies of €18bn a year for building renovation, Gedaschko said. Despite efforts to invest in insulation for existing homes and strict energy efficiency standards for new buildings, “the specific energy consumption [per square metre] has hardly been reduced over the last ten years,” he added.
He also called for a focus on “climate efficiency instead of energy efficiency.” Meanwhile, Social Democratic construction and housing minister Klara Geywitz said she had consistently “spoken out against rigid individual renovation targets.”
The decarbonisation of the heat supply [is] more important than an unaffordable general renovation obligation. The fundamental conflict was between the economy ministry’s focus on energy efficiency and the affordability of construction.
Geywitz blamed the crisis on his government colleague Robert Habeck, who was the Greens’ candidate for chancellor this weekend. Habeck, who originally wanted to attend the event himself, was forced to cancel at the last minute in order to stay longer at the COP29 climate summit in Baku.
