Climate change: billions in damage burden Germany

Since 2018 alone, the damage caused by hot and dry summers and the floods in July 2021 has been estimated at more than 80 billion euros. According to the authors, the damage caused by the heat and drought summers of 2018 and 2019 is 34.9 billion euros, and that of the flood disaster, especially in the Ahr and Erft, is 40.5 billion euros. There is also damage from hail and storms.

According to the experts, particularly high damage from the heat and drought in 2018 and 2019 occurred in forestry and agriculture, but also in industry and commerce due to heat-related production losses. The heat is extremely harmful to people’s health. The consequences are higher health costs, but also many deaths.

In addition to the 183 people who died as a result of the 2021 flood disaster, more than all other storms, flood events, flash floods and similar disasters combined since 2000, a total of “at least 7,500 deaths can be attributed to the exceptionally high heat in 2018 and 2019”. writes prognosis.

While drought and heat damage primarily occurs in agriculture and forestry, flash floods and flood events primarily affect construction, transport and transport infrastructure. Industry and commerce are severely affected by both types of events.

Baerbock: “Climate crisis the biggest security problem”

The experts assume that the actual amount of damage is still higher than the figures determined. First, it is said that not all extreme events could be recorded or considered. Second, there is a need for further research on the heat-related costs in the health system or the effects on biological diversity.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) called on the world community to step up efforts and take immediate action to combat man-made global warming. “The climate crisis is now the biggest security problem for everyone on earth,” Baerbock said on Monday at the start of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. “We don’t have 10, 20, 30 years, no, we still have eight years to cut global emissions by almost half.”

At the now traditional Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, named after the first dialogue in 2010 in the Federal Government’s guest house on the Petersberg near Bonn, ministers and representatives from 40 countries will discuss this Monday and Tuesday how international progress must be made in protecting the climate.

With the start of the traffic light government, the Federal Foreign Office took over control and coordination of international climate policy from the Ministry of the Environment; the conference is taking place for the first time in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The climate dialogue is primarily intended to serve as a discussion platform to build trust in the international climate negotiation process in order to make progress in the fight against global warming despite global crises. The next world climate conference is scheduled for November, this year in Egypt.

Industrialized countries have an obligation

Baerbock continued: “The industrialized countries have a very special responsibility. Because we are leaders in emissions.” She assured that the federal government would not make any compromises in climate protection because of the Ukraine war and the resulting energy crisis.

Rather, Germany is stepping up its efforts to expand renewable energies. It is true that coal-fired power plants have to be reactivated for a short period of time – “but only as an emergency reserve”.

In addition to Baerbock, according to the environmental and development organization Germanwatch, Chancellor Scholz is under particular pressure to act. “Chancellor Scholz hasn’t exactly excelled in climate policy recently,” says Christoph Bals, political director of Germanwatch. The Petersberg climate dialogue offers him the opportunity to underline Germany’s climate policy credibility.

Bals said: “It is now a matter of showing internationally that the new federal government is accelerating the energy transition in response to the Russian war against Ukraine.” He believes that additional funds for international climate finance and money for the implementation of climate partnerships are essential.

International climate partnerships for the accelerated phase-out of coal and the expansion of renewable energies are considered a central instrument of Baerbock’s climate foreign policy. A partnership with South Africa was decided last year by the former federal government and other G7 countries. Germany is currently working with the seven most important industrialized countries to establish further partnerships, for example with Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Senegal.

However, there are no concrete financing plans yet, criticizes Germanwatch. “If these initiatives were to remain just lip service, they would destroy the trust of our partners in the Global South and rob us of what is perhaps our last chance to still comply with the 1.5-degree limit,” said Bals.

>> Read also: How Germany wants to arm itself against extreme weather

Global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius in pre-industrial comparison is considered the limit for being able to control the consequences of climate change at all. If it goes beyond that, the world will increasingly be confronted with changes to which man and nature cannot adapt, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But even if we manage to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, many risks can no longer be averted. So far, the world has warmed by 1.1 degrees – and the consequences are felt internationally.

More: Parched like it hasn’t been in 70 years – how southern Europe wants to fight the drought