Climate change: why adaptation in Germany has failed so far – Knowledge

In some places, not so much needs to happen, you could leave everything as it is. For example in the lower Oder valley between Germany and Poland. The Oder flows there for 50 kilometers through alluvial forests and wet meadows, a perfect habitat for birds and plants – and a good insurance against climate change. The landscape also serves as a floodplain should heavy rainfall cause the border river to burst its banks.

But then something happens, here the “Treaty for the Expansion of the Oder”. The German and Polish governments signed it in 2015, the same year as the Paris climate agreement. The flow of the river is now supposed to accelerate over the next few years through the construction of dams, and the river will become deeper so that larger ships can navigate the Oder. In the event of a flood, the water could possibly no longer spread so extensively, wet meadows and floodplains could be displaced, moors could dry out and thus become a source of CO₂.

Less than one in ten of the 400 municipalities has concrete plans

It is examples like these that Journalists Susanne Götze and Annika Joeres in the book “Climate out of control: Floods, storms, heat – How Germany has to protect itself” show how Germany is currently preparing itself against climate change: in many places not at all, in other places very slowly, and sometimes, as along the Oder, things go completely wrong direction so that climate risks are unnecessarily amplified. After last Year Nick Reimer and Toralf Staud with “Germany 2050: How climate change will change our lives” (Kiwi) outlined in detail what global warming is likely to do between Sylt and Zugspitze by the middle of the century, “Climate Out of Control” now focuses on adapting to the climate crisis – an important contribution to a discourse , which is still underdeveloped in Germany.

The international fight against climate change has long been based on two pillars. Next to the mitigationthe reduction of greenhouse gases, the states committed themselves at the beginning of the 1990s to ensure “appropriate adaptation to climate change” nationally and regionally adaptation. However, even 30 years later, this work order has hardly made it into the German town halls. At least that’s how the authors read a query together with the “Ask the State” portal for local adaptation plans in 400 German cities and communities. Of these, only every tenth had an adjustment concept. Even fewer municipalities are planning specific projects, such as “unsealing areas to mitigate heat, or creating retention basins for heavy rain”. Only eleven municipalities can say straight away how many trees they want to plant, and not a single one says how many square meters of concrete and asphalt are to be dismantled – the latter would be one of the most important measures to drain heavy rain and avoid heat islands.

Unsealing areas tends not to bring popularity

Avoidance, perhaps that’s part of the explanation for so much inaction. As a mayor, you can’t really boast about prevented, virtually invisible damage, especially since it’s often unclear where the money for a conversion of the infrastructure is supposed to come from in the first place. Adaptation to climate change has not yet been one of the mandatory tasks of local authorities; other things, such as repairing roads, have priority. Where there are budgets for climate adaptation at all, they are usually so low that a few thousand flyers can be printed with them, but not a few thousand square meters of green space. As a result, the state prefers to pay for the damage – in the case of the Flood disaster along the Ahr a year ago: 30 billion euros – instead of ensuring sufficient flood protection and lighter development in river valleys in advance. However, as the authors make clear, it is also not enough to attribute the omissions to red tape and tight budgets: for many communities it is extremely lucrative to designate areas that could serve as flood protection as building land instead.

Open detailed view

It is one of the strengths of the book to illuminate such gaps in the response to the climate crisis. However, the book itself leaves a few gaps, which is understandable given the magnitude of the challenges. The focus is clearly on the conversion and dismantling of infrastructure, forests and agriculture. A change in behavior among the population would also be important, for example to protect themselves from the consequences of extreme heat, or reforms in civil protection to warn more quickly and effectively in the event of natural disasters. One would also like to know whether other countries are actually further along in adapting to the consequences of global warming and what can be learned from this. It is said that “in the Asian regions” more money is sometimes being spent on climate change adaptation – for what exactly, however, remains an open question.

The verdict on Germany’s adjustment policy is harsh: “Out of stinginess, ignorance and greed for profit, we are not making the necessary preparations in many places to protect our population. That borders on negligence.” After all, an emergency program of the traffic light coalition now provides, among other things, 60 million euros for communities to protect against extreme weather events. And 100 jobs for so-called climate adaptation managers are to be created. One can only wish these people the best of luck.