As sluggish as climate policy is sometimes, the speed with which politicians and negotiators are signing new statements and declarations at the COP26 climate conference and forging alliances for this or against that is quite remarkable. Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of the saving of the forests, the conversion of agriculture or the end of coal.
At the end of the conference, a brief summary from the German point of view: The Federal Republic of Germany has signed an agreement on the protection of forests. Global deforestation is to be stopped by 2030 and reversed. Anything but agreeing to this suggestion would be quite embarrassing for the home of Hans Carl von Carlowitz, the inventor of the principle of sustainability in forestry. The federal government also agreed to a declaration to end coal burning in the 2030s – which doesn’t particularly hurt, after all, the phase-out of coal by 2038 at the latest is already sealed.
Germany is not represented in the “Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance”. The bloc, led by Costa Rica and Denmark, does not want to develop any more oil and gas fields and end the production of fossil fuels. A little discouraged that the federal government does not support this. After all, the future of the country is not based on the fact that new oil reserves are still being discovered under the Lüneburg Heath.
From 2023 onwards, KfW will no longer be allowed to support fossil fuel projects
Significantly more jobs in this country depend on the automobile – and the federal government has also blocked this area so far. Two dozen countries do not want to allow cars with internal combustion engines from 2035 onwards. The vehicle manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz have also joined the initiative. The signature of the German government, however, is missing. That could backfire, comments my colleague Michael Bauchmüller.
I was most positively surprised that Germany decided not to support any new fossil energy projects abroad. The signatures of now 27 states mean, according to calculations by the NGO Urgewald, that the sum of potential public funds that are being shifted from fossil fuels to clean energy will grow to 21.7 billion US dollars. In Germany, according to the declaration, the KfW Bank or the export credit agency Euler Hermes, which protects German companies’ investments abroad, are no longer allowed to support new fossil fuel projects. The obligation applies from 2023. How serious the government is with the project will soon be seen. So the Ministry of Economic Affairs is about to make a decision on loan guarantees for a huge natural gas project in Russia, on which German corporations want to earn money.
What UN Secretary General António Guterres tweeted on the occasion of the Pact for the Protection of Forests probably applies to all agreements in Glasgow: “Signing the declaration is the easy part. What is important is that it is implemented.”
How do you rate Germany’s performance in Glasgow or in terms of climate policy in general? Please write to me at [email protected].
(This text is from the weekly Newsletter Environmental Friday you here free of charge can order.)