The Water Framework Directive and the Water Resources Act (WHG) require the establishment of a good water status or significant improvements and the existence of a good ecological potential, the Flora-Fauna-Habitat (FFH) Directive the good conservation status. The prohibition of deterioration applies. The establishment of fish-biological and morphological passability of flowing waters for fish and other aquatic organisms has priority (this also applies to solids). This applies not only to fish passage, but in particular to the harmless descent of fish. Up to now, fish passage at numerous hydropower plants still leads to high, cumulative losses. In addition, impoundment causes a deterioration of water quality by reducing oxygen input. Electricity from new hydropower plants should therefore no longer be remunerated under the Renewable Energy Sources Act, no more new hydropower plants should be built, and remuneration for existing plants should be tied to proof of ecological quality. It is ten times cheaper to save one kilowatt hour of electricity than to generate it with small hydropower. Moreover, we can save ten times more electricity than hydropower can supply in total. In order to successfully implement the energy turnaround, we cannot rely on the further expansion of hydropower. This must be accompanied by a tightening of the WHG on hydropower utilization.

For further reading and discussion:

https://www.bund.net/energiewende/erneuerbare-energien/wasserkraft/

https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/282388/7701acaf1b6a905020b1fae3c71cef80/stellungnahme---bund-fuer-umwelt-und-naturschutz-deutschland--bund--data

The coal phase-out law passed in 2020 stipulates that by 2022 the share of coal-fired power generation from hard coal and lignite is to be reduced to 15 gigawatts each. Further reductions will follow by 2030: To around eight gigawatts of capacity for hard coal and nine gigawatts of capacity for lignite. Hard coal-fired power plants are to be decommissioned via tendering procedures. Employees in opencast mining or at a coal-fired power plant will receive an adjustment allowance if they lose their jobs and are at least 58 years old. Emission allowances released by the closure of power plants must be cancelled. In addition, the goal of meeting 65 percent of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030 is now written into law. The law is not in line with the decisions of the Coal Commission. Germany will only be able to achieve the greenhouse gas neutrality needed to stop the climate crisis if the country has phased out coal by 2030. This would be possible without further ado in terms of technology, structural policy and the energy industry, as the experts in the Coal Commission have already repeatedly stated. With the necessary increase in the European climate target for 2030, coal-fired power generation in Germany will end much earlier than stipulated in the law. A reform of the coal phase-out law must be consistently oriented toward the Paris Agreement and Germany's necessary commitments. This includes, among other things, a deletion of the "energy economic necessity" in the law.

For further reading and discussion:

https://www.bund.net/kohle/kohle-ausstieg/kohleausstiegsgesetz/

https://www.dnr.de/fileadmin/Positionen/2021-DNR_Kernforderungen_zur_Bundestagswahl.pdf

Energy prices, which have been rising for years, have led to low-income households having difficulty paying their electricity bills or heating their homes adequately. The result is a negative impact on mental and physical health. In particular, measures such as interruption of electricity supply ("power cuts") have been criticized. Energy poverty has many facets: Risk of poverty due to high energy prices, debt problems of private households, critical living situations, poor housing conditions or general income poverty. For women in particular, energy poverty is an economic, health and social risk - and one that has so far been little visible. The gender dimension must therefore also be taken into account in legislation and support programs. Good cooperation between all actors (job center, social welfare office, debt counseling, other social assistance from welfare associations, consumer centers, energy suppliers) is enormously important for early assistance. However, energy poverty is above all an income problem that must be addressed with a law against energy poverty. The state's social security systems should ensure that households can pay their electricity bills and heat needs from them. The unequal treatment of electricity and heat in the social security systems must be abolished. Reducing the price of electricity by reforming the system of levies and charges can provide significant relief for low-income households, since it is precisely here that the proportion of household income accounted for by energy costs is higher than in the case of high-income households.

For further reading and discussion:

https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/676950/1a9832351ce7317239b355b5d46be766/sv-busch-data.pdf