On the 17 of March Metropolitan Research Institute organised workshop dealing with the planning dilemmas of the Social Climate Plan in Hungary in the framework of the ComActivate project. The representative of the Ministry of Energy presented on the framework conditions and the current state of planning. The plenary was followed by three parallel thematic sessions.
The goal of the Social Climate Plan is to mitigate the price impact of the Emission Trading System (2) on buildings and transportation. One year before the introduction of ETS2 (1 of January 2026 according to plans) the member states should implement measures that decrease energy poverty in the building sector but primarily not by income support (however, it is also allowed), but by structural interventions into the renovation of the building stock.
The European Commission has developed methodological guidance on the creation of the national Social Climate Plans, but these guidelines could not properly take into account the differences between the member states. The Hungarian housing stock is much more owner occupied and socially more mixed also spatially and within the same buildings than the ones in Western Europe. Under these circumstances, it is much more difficult to support exclusively the energy poor.
The participants at the workshop aimed to find solutions on how to identify the energy poor in the privately owned family house, multi-family buildings and municipally owned housing segments, and besides that how it can be ensured that the non-energy poor leverage their funds as well.
