The war in Ukraine has made the economy and society aware of the dependence on fossil fuels. The task now is to accelerate the climate transformation. “This is a huge challenge, but also offers potential and opportunities,” said Franz Rudorfer, Managing Director of the Bank and Insurance Division of the Austrian Economic Chamber.
Rudorfer estimates the additional financing requirement in Austria to be around 146 billion euros by 2030 by 2030. The calculations come from the Federal Environment Agency on behalf of the Bank and Insurance division.
The largest chunk, at 67.3 billion euros, is accounted for by transport (expansion of the rail network, zero-emission vehicles). Additional costs of 44.4 billion euros are planned for energy (switching to renewables), 25.7 billion euros for buildings (renovation and conversion of the heating systems). The additional costs for industry are significantly lower at 8.5 billion euros. This is because industrial companies think in long-term cycles and the transformation effects would only begin to take effect after 2030, said Georg Rebernig, Managing Director of the Federal Environment Agency. All additional investments added together would mean 70,000 additional jobs and trigger a value added effect of around nine billion euros.
In order to achieve the turnaround more quickly, the money could also be “directed from existing sources into sustainable channels,” said Rudorfer. Among other things, he referred to the 800 billion euros in financial assets that are in circulation in Austria, as well as the investment potential of insurance companies (110 billion euros), pension funds (27 billion) and provident funds (16 billion). In order to create incentives to invest money “sustainably”, tax relief would have to be created, such as a retention period for securities or the abolition of insurance tax for life insurance, according to the bank spokesman.
Source: Nachrichten
