News Detail

21.10.2020

Economic Policy Forum of the Protestant Academy Frankfurt

Martin Kesternich discusses the topic “Sustainable in the future – Is the Green Deal the right instrument?”

 

Together with Uta Maria Pfeiffer, Head of Sustainability, German Air Transport Association (BDL) and Damian Patting, Legal Advisor, Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) Brussels, Prof. Dr. Martin Kesternich, Deputy Head of the research area „Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management“ at ZEW Mannheim, addressed the questions of what the European Green Deal can achieve and how the measures to revive the economy after the Corona crisis can be reconciled with it.

The EU Commission's Green Deal is a prestige project that aims to ensure that Europe will be greenhouse gas neutral in 2050. The Corona crisis has shaken the economy to an unprecedented extent. Huge financial resources and aid programs are needed to prevent the crash of entire economic sectors with all its devastating social consequences. But there are different opinions on how this can be achieved and how the available money can be invested wisely.

Martin Kesternich describes the goal of climate policy as cost-efficient decarbonization with market-based instruments such as the CO2 price. Cost efficiency has once again become an important issue in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the current crisis, it can also be observed that a lack of economic growth is accompanied by considerable social disruption. Reducing emissions by stagnation of the economy could therefore not be the way to achieve climate protection. He also emphasized that it is important to ensure that climate protection measures are accepted by the population. Due to the current income shocks experienced by some households, the focus is even more on an effective and cost-efficient design of climate protection.

Watch the online discussion