The long haul or a short run of policy change? The introduction of German CO2-pricing on transport and heating within the European multilevel system

In 2019, the German government decided to introduce a national system of emissions trading on transport and heating (nETS) starting on 1st January 2021. The policy design of the nETS was heavily criticized for being labelled as emissions trading while operating in its initial phase as CO2 tax. However, the question of policy design appears to have been rather neglected so far. Moreover, dynamics of the European multilevel system have been of significant importance. The threat of non-fulfillment of European sanctionequipped emission targets, as well as the perspective of a European rather than a national carbon pricing, received increasing attention. To capture the different causes behind policy design choice, the multi-factor Political Process-inherent Dynamics Approach (PIDA) is applied. In addition, the analysis draws on multilevel governance scholarship. The article seeks to contribute to the literature on policy design choice under the circumstances of climate change and multilevel governance.