Greenpeace has sharply criticized the coalition’s planned relief measures for car owners. According to Greenpeace mobility expert Lena Donat, the current federal government package is steering the country toward a “fossil fuel infarction”. She stated that the government’s policies are “as sensible as lowering the price of life preservers when a ship is sinking”. Instead of distributing short-term palliative measures, responsible politics must facilitate the country’s swift independence from oil and gas.
Donat argued that reacting to high oil and gas prices with lower energy taxes “wastes millions of taxpayer euros daily, and this especially benefits high earners with large vehicle consumption”. She insisted that instead, the focus must be on achieving as fast an independence from oil and gas as possible. She suggested that the government should assist people in escaping the “fossil trap” perhaps through a mobility allowance. Donat added that “every new internal combustion engine, and every further gas heating system sold today, increases our fossil dependence”.
Furthermore, the German Environmental Aid (Deutsche Umwelthilfe) opposes the government’s plans to develop domestic gas reserves. Sascha Müller-Kraenner, the federal managing director of the organization, told the Tagesspiegel that “re-entering national gas production provides no short-term benefit”. He also claimed that even in the long term, only selected companies within the gas industry would profit. Müller-Kraenner concluded that, with these plans, “the federal government is serving the gas lobby”.