I presume you meant car, not gas taxes. I think the opposite: as Tiefensee himself suggests, the idiots won't move on kerosene tax if there is no global move; an EU-wide car tax harmonisation is then more likely.

A gas guzzler driven 25 km a week emits much much less CO2 than a more reasonable car driven 500 km a week.

So what? If you only want to drive 25 km a week, driving a Smart still means less CO2 emissions than driving a H2. These are separate issues. Both fuel taxes targeting absolute emissions and car taxes targeting specific emissions will work towards reduced consumption, and thus I support both.

Just recently I read, that a representative of the German real estate business said, oil prices are not yet high enough that it would be a good investment to reinsulate older houses.

Nice anecdote. However, I recall Germany is a leading country in building insulation, and there were a number of programmes. (I'm now off to watch something on telly, but will look up some sources later tonight.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}