By Gunnar Schupelius
What positive effect would it actually have if we all gave up gas and oil and heated with heat pumps? This question must be answered, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The planned ban on heating is causing great uncertainty. From 2024, even the installation of new gas heaters will be banned unless they are combined with 65 percent renewable energies, for example with a heat pump. This is what the draft for the Building Energy Act (GEG) by Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) wants.
There is resistance in the Bundestag. The FDP does not want to pass the law in this way and there are also concerns in the SPD. It is feared that people will be overwhelmed and will not be able to afford heat pump systems.
Now there is arguing and haggling within the red-yellow-green coalition: How strict should the heating ban be? Which exceptions should apply? When is it supposed to come into effect?
A fundamental question is not even asked: do we need this law at all? Or to put it another way: do we really have to ban oil and gas heating systems?
CO₂ emissions, which are blamed for global warming, are to be reduced. Therefore, fossil fuels should disappear. So far so good. But what impact would it have on the climate if we no longer heat with oil and gas?
Little is actually known about this, especially little from the Habeck Ministry. So you have to get the facts together.
These numbers are important
First: Around 18 percent of all CO₂ emissions in Germany are caused by heating and cooling buildings and water heating.
Secondly: Germany accounts for around 1.8 percent of global emissions of CO₂ (from burning fossil fuels).
Conclusion: The heating and cooling systems of all buildings in Germany account for well under one percent of global CO₂ emissions. The impact on global warming is correspondingly small.
The average global temperature is increasing by 0.15 to 0.2 °C per decade. Even if all heating systems in Germany were fossil-free, a change in warming as a result of this conversion would be practically impossible to measure, it would be in the 0.00… range.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens)
Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Kahnert
The effect of the German “heating transition” on the climate would be so small that it could not be statistically distinguished from a random fluctuation.
And for this practically unrecognizable effect, you turn the whole country upside down. Millions of owners and renters are anxiously checking their accounts. If you have saved yourself a roof over your head as a retirement provision, you will lose everything if you cannot afford the new heating system.
All sense of proportion is lost. The principle of proportionality is completely disregarded. They encroach on property without restraint in the name of saving the world, which, however, is not saved at all.
The Building Energy Act does not have to be “improved” as the FDP demands. It must not come into force at all.
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