Reactions to the climate report: “The alarm bells are deafening”

UN Secretary General Guterres calls on politicians to act quickly in view of the warnings of the World Climate Report. Federal Environment Minister Schulze warned: “The planet is in mortal danger”.

After the alarming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the drastic consequences of climate change, UN Secretary General António Guterres called politicians to account. “The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable,” he said. The greenhouse gases are suffocating the planet and putting billions of people at risk.

“The viability of our society depends on leaders in politics, business and civil society agreeing to support policies, measures and investments that limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees,” said Guterres. The solutions would be on the table. “The report has to be the death knell on coal and other fossil fuels before they destroy our planet,” he said. The rich countries and development banks would have to make more money available for adaptation to climate change in poorer countries. The promise to raise $ 100 billion a year for climate protection and adaptation must be fulfilled.

“If we join forces now, we can avert the disaster,” said Guterres. There is no longer any room for delays or excuses. Answers would have to be provided at the world climate conference in Glasgow in November.

Schulze: “It’s not too late yet”

Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze also saw the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a warning to act quickly. “The planet is in mortal danger,” said the SPD politician. “Climate change is not a future scenario, it is reality.” One can only prepare as best as possible: “We are also experiencing this here in Germany: catastrophic floods after heavy rain in July, persistent drought in recent years.” The heat waves with forest fires in North America, Siberia, Greece and Turkey also showed this.

Schulze called for a rapid move away from coal, oil and gas and an expansion of solar and wind power. “There have already been enough wake-up calls and roll calls,” said the minister. Climate protection is a “vital” task. “It is now up to us to turn the 2020s into a decade of climate protection and to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible. It is not too late for that.”

Thunberg: “It’s up to us to be brave”

The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was not surprised by the findings of the new climate report. “The new IPCC report contains no real surprises. It confirms what we already know from thousands of previous studies and reports – that we are in an emergency,” Thunberg wrote on Twitter and Instagram. It is a solid but cautious summary of the current state of knowledge.

“It is up to us to be courageous and make decisions based on the scientific evidence provided in these reports,” Thunberg continued. The 18-year-old added the worst effects of climate change. “But not if we carry on like today, and not without treating the crisis like a crisis.”

Researcher Boetius: “Last wake-up call”

According to the Bremerhaven-based marine biologist and climate impact researcher Antje Boetius, the new IPCC report can only be understood as “the last wake-up call”. “We no longer have a choice, but as a society we have to do everything in our power to stop global warming and to prepare ourselves as well as possible for unavoidable risks and dangers,” said the director of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for polar and marine research in Bremerhaven.

Climate Alliance calls for decisive political action

The Climate Alliance Germany called on the coming federal government to “accelerate” when it comes to climate protection. The new climate report relentlessly shows that the climate crisis is getting worse and worse, explained the deputy managing director of the Climate Alliance, Malte Hentschke-Kemper. “The climate crisis is already here and urgently requires decisive political action.”

In order to curb the global rise in temperature, emissions would have to drop massively in all sectors. “Every tenth of a degree prevented global heating counts. To achieve this, we need more expertise in climate protection,” said Hentschke-Kemper. The technical and economic possibilities for effective measures are available, there is a lack of political will to implement them. “Now we need a factual competition in the federal election campaign for the best overall concept.”

Greenpeace, WWF, Germanwatch: act now

Several environmental protection organizations have also called on the federal government to act immediately following the latest warnings in the IPCC report. “The shocking thing about this report is that everything alarming could be foreseen – and yet governments and corporations are still moving at a snail’s pace when it comes to climate protection,” said Greenpeace climate expert Christoph Thies, for example. The report, along with the latest images of fires and floods, should shake up politics.

“Every government, including the coming German federal government, must stop the consumption of fossil fuels as quickly as possible and protect forests, moors and oceans as natural CO2 sinks.” More and more fires, more frequent floods and droughts cost human lives, destroyed natural spaces and habitats and caused immense economic damage.