Christoph Kühleis joined the Federal Environment Agency in 2000 as a research assistant in the ‘Economic and Social Policy Environmental Issues’ division. At the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), he had the historic opportunity to help shape the implementation of the European Emissions Trading Scheme in Germany from the very beginning. He was part of the founding team of the DEHSt and took over as head of the DEHSt’s Economics Division in 2005.

Together with his team, he focused on the economic aspects of emissions trading: evaluating and further developing the emissions trading scheme with regard to allocation issues, structural measures and emissions targets, auctioning and market supervision, as well as international topics such as linking and carbon leakage; the division was also responsible for implementing the monitoring and reporting of the EU ETS at national and European level, as well as for coordination between the national inventory and the ETS.

From 2019 to early 2021, he served as acting head of Department V 3 ‘Energy Installations, Aviation, Registries and Fundamental Economic Issues’.

Following the transfer of responsibility for the implementation of the national fuel emissions trading scheme in 2019, he played a key role in setting it up and took charge of the new Department V 4 at the DEHSt, which was subsequently established in 2022. The department’s main areas of focus are the administration of national and European fuel emissions trading in Germany, including the associated compensation rules; together with Department V 3, the administration of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM); the uniform interpretation, implementation and conceptual development of monitoring, reporting and verification in all areas of application at the DEHSt, including liaising with testing bodies and the German Accreditation Body (DAkkS), as well as overseeing the DEHSt’s IT systems – comprising around 100 specialist applications – to ensure highly digitalised enforcement processes.

Christoph Kühleis holds a degree in Economics from the Free University of Berlin.

Contact:

E-mail: emissionshandel@dehst.de