Germany: A pilot program of climate protection agreements has been launched to help German companies convert to CO2-free production, starting in 2022. The Federal government declared that Euro900m would be available in the first instance. This is intended to assist companies in hard-to-abate sectors, with the government assuming that more than 50 companies in the cement, steel, lime and ammonia industries will be eligible to apply for climate protection agreements. These will off-set the difference between the additional costs resulting from the CO2-neutral operation of a company and the CO2 price in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The terms of the contract will likely run for 10 years, to provide the companies with sufficient time to adjust to considerably higher CO2 abatement costs in the future. In addition to the funding of investment costs in EU-wide hydrogen infrastructure projects, the federal government sees the industry decarbonisation programme as an essential transformation instrument for energy-intensive industry in order to achieve the goal of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045. /Global Cement