Before climate conference: Schulze calls for more climate commitments

Before the World Climate Conference in Glasgow next week, German Environment Minister Schulze has called for more climate commitments. According to new reports, the measures planned so far are insufficient to contain warming.

Despite all the progress, the climate-damaging emissions would continue to rise dramatically, said the acting environment minister, Svenja Schulze.

Our current plans are only sufficient to keep global warming well below three degrees Celsius. Keeping it below the agreed two degrees or, better, 1.5 degrees will not be easy and will require more countries to raise their climate targets.

The 20 largest industrial nations have a special responsibility in this regard. At the upcoming COP26 conference, each country should clearly define how it wants to get on the path to climate neutrality – in other words, it can only emit as many greenhouse gases as can be neutralized again, said the outgoing minister.

Germany will now fall short of climate targets

According to a report by the Ministry of the Environment, Germany will also clearly miss its climate targets if no further measures are taken. Schulze urged more solidarity. The industrialized countries have set themselves the goal of providing 100 billion dollars each year to help poorer countries that have been particularly hard hit by climate change to adapt to the consequences.

But we are still a long way from this goal. That is why Germany has doubled these funds. And we hope that many countries will follow suit.

Previously, a report by the UN Environment Program had made it clear what a huge gap there is between aspiration and reality in climate protection. According to this report, states around the world must increase their efforts to protect the climate sevenfold if they want to prevent global warming from rising to a threatening level. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke of a wake-up call.

We are well on the way to a catastrophic increase in earth temperature of 2.7 degrees Celsius.

Lots of warnings about climate change conference

The current plans and pledges by states are nowhere near enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, warns the head of the UN environmental program, Inger Andersen.

That is a gaping gap that we have eight years to close.

During this time, greenhouse gas emissions should be almost halved. The problem: regardless of their promises to reduce climate-damaging gases, many states continue to plan, according to the UN report, to produce coal, oil and gas on a large scale.

In 2030 it would be double the amount that would be in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The report demands that the production of these fuels must be cut by more than half.