Status: 06.11.2022 05:47
Ahead of the world climate conference that begins today, many scientists are pessimistic. Foreign Minister Baerbock warned that 2022 should not be a wasted year for climate protection, despite the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Shortly before the start of the COP27 world climate conference in Egypt, Germany called curbing global warming its top priority. “Humanity is heading for an abyss, for a warming of over 2.5 degrees, with devastating effects on our lives on the only planet we have,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens). The world has “all the necessary instruments at hand to limit the climate crisis and get on the 1.5 degree path”.
Despite the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, 2022 “must not be a lost year for climate protection. For many states, it is about the survival of their population and their culture,” said Baerbock with the ministries for economy, development and the environment. “For them, the climate crisis is still the most important security issue, not Russia’s war in Europe.” These states would expect more solidarity from the rich countries.
Low Expectations
Because of the ongoing war in Europe, but also because of the crises in energy, food, economy and growing national debt associated with it, the expectations for the climate conference are rather subdued – also compared to the COP26 a year ago in Glasgow.
Around 30,000 participants are expected to attend the conference, which begins today and is being held in Africa for the first time since 2016. At the COP27, representatives from almost 200 countries in Sharm El-Sheikh spent almost two weeks negotiating how the fight against global warming can be stepped up.
Time is of the essence, as the past seven years have been the warmest since weather records began. Extreme weather events in Pakistan, Nigeria and Somalia, among others, have recently shown the enormous damage and deadly destructive power of climate change.
Latif: conferences “not effective”
Mojib Latif, President of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, was resigned even before the start and questioned the climate conferences as a whole: “There are no breakthroughs,” he told the Bayern media group. The conferences are “unproductive” because “papers with little substance are celebrated as great progress.”
Researchers estimate that global emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases will have to be halved by 2030. The Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible can no longer be achieved otherwise. However, the climate protection plans presented by the states so far envisage even further increasing emissions.
The danger: climate tipping points
And even the 1.5 degree target is not enough according to climate researchers. Johan Rockström, one of the directors of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), together with other scientists, explained why in the journal “Science”: It is possible that some tipping points, from which global warming will continue to accelerate by itself, have already were reached.
This includes the thawing of the ice sheets in Greenland and in western Antarctica, he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS). Therefore, the target should actually be 1.3 degrees of maximum warming. A warming of 1.2 degrees has already been achieved.
However, Rockstrom said he was a pragmatist and saw “zero” chances of pushing through a more ambitious mark than 1.5 degrees. “The Paris Agreement is the only binding document we have. That’s why I defend it,” he told FAS. He also argued that while Germany should not build new nuclear power plants, it should let the existing ones run longer as long as they are safe.
Habeck: Industrial nations must lead the way
Economics Minister Robert Habeck, whose areas of responsibility in the federal government also include climate protection, nevertheless called for decisive action. The COP27 must bring results, Habeck said in a video published on Twitter, because the world has experienced another “disaster year” with galloping global warming. So far, the world community has not moved enough towards climate neutrality.
Germany must play a pioneering role with other industrialized countries: Although Germany only accounts for around two percent of global emissions, “precisely because Germany has every opportunity, a lot of eyes are on Germany. If we don’t manage it (…), with all our financial and technical possibilities (…), then the other 98 percent will not participate either,” said Habeck.
Timmermans for stricter EU climate targets
EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans brought up tightened EU climate targets. “We may even manage to present concrete measures in Egypt to reduce our emissions by more than 55 percent,” he told the “Spiegel”. “That would be important, because at the moment hardly anyone is talking about emissions internationally.”
He accused the United States of not contributing financially to the climate fund, which is supposed to be used to pay for climate protection measures for developing countries. “We pay at least $25 billion every year, it’s the Americans who don’t deliver here,” Timmermans said. US President Joe Biden has not kept his promises either. “I understand well that the global South is complaining about this.”