The SPÖ is calling for an exception for tenants from the planned CO2 tax. “Additional costs due to CO2 pricing have to be borne by the landlords and may not be passed on to tenants”, demands environment spokeswoman Julia Herr. She points out that tenants cannot decide for themselves what type of heating system they want.
According to Statistics Austria, almost four out of ten people in Austria live in rented apartments. According to a study published by the Chamber of Labor last year, these are most frequently heated with district heating, followed by natural gas. Firewood and heating oil, on the other hand, are rarely used in rental apartments. If you add owner-occupied and rented apartments together, gas is the most common fuel: 27.3 percent of households heat with natural gas, 25 percent with district heating, and 16 percent each with heating oil or wood (including wood chips and briquettes).
The SPÖ now points out that the tenants could not choose their heating system themselves. “It would be doubly absurd to change the CO2 pricing to you, because the ‘control effect’ would be zero here,” says Herr in a broadcast. The SPÖ environmental spokeswoman therefore demands that the additional costs be borne by the landlords if they do not want to convert the heating system. In addition, funding is needed to change the system for people with low incomes and for social housing.
In view of the ongoing negotiations on the tax reform, the Ministry of the Environment did not want to comment on how rental apartments could be included in the CO2 price. In April, however, the federal and state governments agreed on phasing out fossil fuels for heating. According to this, coal and oil heating systems should be replaced by 2035 at the latest, natural gas should only be allowed to be used until 2040. In new buildings, gas heating should be a thing of the past as early as 2025.