Climate researcher Levermann: “Our way of life is at stake”

Climate change is a global challenge, but the measures taken by many countries to date are hardly sufficient. In the daily topics Climate researcher Levermann called for stricter obligations and recommended involving the private sector.

Climate researcher Anders Levermann is convinced that the global community must achieve climate neutrality faster than many national plans currently envisage. “We need much stricter voluntary commitments on the part of the federal states,” said the physicist and climate scientist from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in the daily topics. “Indeed, our way of life is at stake.”

Levermann called for a zero-emission policy in 20 years for rich countries such as Germany or the USA, and in the following years for poorer countries. In order to achieve this goal, there is the possibility that great powers such as the USA, Europe and China will unite and create a common carbon price, said Levermann. “Because a minimum price that rises more and more and then enables a zero-emissions policy until 2040 – that would be a strong and powerful signal,” said the climate researcher.

A common carbon price would allow the economy to solve the problem, Levermann said in im daily topics-Interview. “The crucial thing is that we discuss when which country will go to zero emissions. Because that’s where the economic power lies. When you tell the economy: This is the future, this is the past – then they want to get into it as quickly as possible The future. “

“No more intermediate technologies”

With the CO2 emissions it is like with microplastics, so Levermann. “What you put into the atmosphere will practically stay there forever and raise the temperature of the planet.” As long as coal, oil and gas continue to be burned, the temperature continues to rise. Now it is up to the industrialized countries to show that they mean business: “No more intermediate technologies, but only technologies that can really bring us to zero,” demanded Levermann.

Climate change is not a problem for the poor, Levermann clarified, but one for the whole world. The weather extremes would increase, as the floods in this would have shown. “Climate change is getting closer,” said the scientist.