{"id":27354,"date":"2018-01-25T16:39:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T15:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=27354"},"modified":"2020-03-28T02:48:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T01:48:01","slug":"more-courage-needed-to-protect-the-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/more-courage-needed-to-protect-the-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"More Courage Needed to Protect the Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Quelle: Flickr\/\u200bGuy Gorek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The rapid devel\u00adopment of wind and solar energy alone will not put an end to climate change. Green\u00adhouse gas emissions continue to rise around the world. Even Germany has not been able to drive down the use of coal as an energy source. In the absence of a decisive policy, there will be no progress on climate protection, and future gener\u00ada\u00adtions will pay the price. They would be forced to resort to drastic and contro\u00adversial measures to reduce CO2 emissions.<\/h2>\n

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Last year, 2017, was not a good year for climate protection \u2014 either in Germany or around the world. Under a newly elected President Donal Trump, the USA announced its exit from the Paris Agreement. This was a major setback for inter\u00adna\u00adtional cooper\u00adation on climate change. It was instru\u00admental in deter\u00admining that there were no important climate protection accords at the G20 level. In Germany, climate policy gives an impression of increasing paralysis given the country\u2019s imminent failure to meet its own climate targets for 2020. This, despite what were initially high hopes, with Germany holding the chair of the G20 summit and the UN Climate Change Conference to be organised in Bonn on behalf of the Fiji Islands. And as though there weren\u2019t enough bad news already: The Global Carbon Project presented its latest emission estimates for 2017. The scien\u00adtists\u2019 projec\u00adtions indicated that global CO2 emissions, which had remained at about the same level over the past few years, were likely to rise steeply, by 2%.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1 \u2014 Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and indus\u00adtrial processes. Source: Le Quere et al. (2017); Global Carbon Budget (2017)<\/h6>\n

Climate protection and the phase-out of fossil fuels are not going to happen on their own, there must be policies to shape them.<\/h2>\n

That the rapid devel\u00adop\u00adments of wind and solar energy, or such devel\u00adop\u00adments combined with battery technology would put paid to fossil fuels all by themselves has never been more than a fairy-tale. The current CO2 growth is a clear indication of coal\u2019s unchanging role as the central fuel source for energy production. In the absence of more-decisive policy inter\u00adven\u00adtions, many additional coal-fired power stations around the world will soon be brought online \u2013 despite the substantial curtailment of devel\u00adopment plans for coal-fired power plants in some important countries, like India and China. There are still power stations with an aggregate capacity of 270 gigawatts (GW) currently under construction and a further 570 GW in the planning stage \u2013 taken together that is equiv\u00adalent to around 40 percent of today\u2019s global capacity. But even in a country like Germany, which can claim to be a leader in inter\u00adna\u00adtional climate policy, coal power has not yet been driven down. At 40 percent, coal\u2019s share in the German energy mix has remained unwaver\u00adingly high for a decade. Coal is the main reason for the failure of emissions to fall more rapidly in Germany for years. This \u2013 partic\u00adu\u00adlarly in view of the concurrent phase-out of nuclear power \u2013has gone some way towards robbing the swift expansion of the use of renew\u00adables of its climate-policy kudos.<\/p>\n

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Figure 2 \u2013 Green-house gas emissions in Germany since 1990 and the country\u2019s climate targets; data: German Federal Environ\u00admental Agency (2017), graphic: Max Callaghan (MCC)<\/h6>\n

Time is in short supply. To meet the inter\u00adna\u00adtional climate targets, the world still must become carbon neutral by the second half of the 21st<\/sup> century: humans have to take every tonne of CO2 that comes out of a chimney or exhaust pipe back out of the atmos\u00adphere right away through negative emissions. Achieving carbon neutrality will take nothing less than a historic trend reversal. The global growth in emissions, which has averaged 2 percent per annum over the past four decades, would have to be give way to a decrease in global emissions of approx\u00adi\u00admately 3 percent a year for the next three decades (see figure 3). This will require a proactive approach to climate policy that is well coordi\u00adnated both at the national and inter\u00adna\u00adtional level.<\/p>\n

A \u201cmore-of-the-same\u201d policy means the loss of the scope for flexi\u00adbility in the design of inter\u00adna\u00adtional climate policy.<\/h2>\n

We cannot allow \u201cmore of the same\u201d, either in Germany or in inter\u00adna\u00adtional climate policy. Despite all the success stories of the energy revolution and the Paris Agreement, the trend reversal is far from being realised. The voluntary pledges to reduce green\u00adhouse gases that countries have made so far under UN climate accords will allow global emissions to continue to rise \u2013 they will just slow them down a bit. If we do not manage to increase willingness to cut down emissions in the coming years, we will be left with no scope for flexi\u00adbility in the design of future climate policy. Today, we are still relatively free to design the mix of technologies to use to limit global warming to 2\u00b0C \u2013 if we wait until 2030, there will be almost no such latitude left. Germany would be forced to seriously consider unpopular technologies like carbon capture and storage. With each passing year in which global emissions continue to rise, the voices calling for the use of \u201csympto\u00admatic technologies\u201d to directly influence the earth\u2019s radiation balance (i.e. solar geoengi\u00adneering) will grow louder. Yet we still know next to nothing about the risks associated with action of that kind. Only coura\u00adgeous and deter\u00admined climate policy can prevent us from sliding into a situation where our actions are dictated by the climate emergency.  How to forge a basic global consensus around this common interest is one of the most important questions of our time.<\/p>\n

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Figure 3 \u2013 Two possible climate protection pathways limiting global warming to 2\u00b0C. Immediate and rigorous reduction of emissions (dark green pathways) before 2030 permits greater scope for action after 2030. The costs of delaying climate mitigation action (light green pathways) will have to be paid later in the form of higher decar\u00adbon\u00adi\u00adsation rates and more rapid expansion of climate protection technologies. This includes a far greater depen\u00addence on negative emission technologies, which remove C02 from the atmos\u00adphere after their emission (not shown). Source: IPCC (2014)<\/h6>\n
The world needs climate protection pioneers: A GroKo would have to reinvent itself with respect to climate policy<\/h6>\n

The world needs countries like Germany to take resolute action and lead the way forward, partic\u00adu\u00adlarly after a year as problematic for climate protection as 2017. Germany could, for instance, join forces with France to push forward a reform of the European emissions trading scheme for instance. The intro\u00adduction of a minimum price would have to be the key element of such a reform, as it would make it possible to have a steering effect and security of investment for businesses. Without an effective price signal at the European level, taking effective action to mitigate climate change and phase out coal will be difficult and expensive over the long term. Germany should team up with France\u2019s President Emmanuel Macron and lead the \u201chigh-ambition coalition\u201d formed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris into a successful future.<\/p>\n

So, a Grand Coalition reloaded (or GroKo for Grosse Koalition) strikes many as a disas\u00adtrous devel\u00adopment. And indeed, any notion of serious debate about how to close the gap between current projec\u00adtions and German climate protection targets for 2020 was brushed aside during the exploratory talks. The avoidance of serious discussion of short-term climate protection gives rise to the suspicion that the new focus on the 2030 targets is intended primarily to distract the public from the lack of a real desire to take any action.<\/p>\n

Despite the rumblings of climate-change denial increas\u00adingly emanating from the conser\u00adv\u00adative fringes and right-wing populist parties: the imper\u00adative of preventing dangerous climate change is of central impor\u00adtance to our future and one on which there is broadly based scien\u00adtific and societal consensus. Politi\u00adcians must begin to focus on putting Germany\u2019s economic standing on a sustainable footing rather than striving to protect the status quo. The threat to the German automotive industry is not climate protection, it is missing the oppor\u00adtunity to get off to an audacious start with alter\u00adnative, sustainable drive technologies. Lusatia\u2019s economic future is not going to be secured by holding on to jobs in open-cast lignite mining for as long as possible, but through the early initi\u00adation of struc\u00adtural change in the region. We are lucky in that the imper\u00adative of climate protection has taken firm root in mainstream German society. A possible Grand Coalition should reflect this as well \u2013  only by seriously grappling with issues of impor\u00adtance for our future will it be possible to stem the growing tide of populism. What other justi\u00adfi\u00adcation for a relaunched Grand Coalition can there be, if not the imper\u00adative of tacking the great challenges on which our future depends?<\/p>\n

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