The State Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment is something of a veteran at climate conferences.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin No matter how difficult and tiring international climate diplomacy may be, Jochen Flasbarth does not lose his optimism that easily. “We are starting the second week of negotiations with full strength and in a good mood,” said the State Secretary in the Environment Ministry on Monday at the climate conference in Glasgow.
Flasbarth, 59, is something of a veteran at climate conferences. Born in Duisburg, he has experienced more than 20 conferences; he was head of the German Nature Conservation Union (Nabu), and later head of the nature conservation department in the Ministry of the Environment. In 2009 he moved to the head of the Federal Environment Agency. When the SPD politician Barbara Hendricks became Minister of the Environment in December 2013, she made Flasbarth her State Secretary. Her successor, SPD politician Svenja Schulze, is also sticking to him.
For good reason: apart from the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, there is hardly anyone in the German government who is as familiar with international climate negotiations as Flasbarth. And so the head of the German delegation also holds the position in Glasgow, Scotland, especially since the environment minister, who is only in office, is negotiating the contents of the future traffic light coalition in Berlin and will not arrive until Wednesday evening. The negotiations continue to focus on higher ambitions, international climate protection financing and the rule book.
Flasbarth knows about the ups and downs, no reason to lose your nerve if the largest emitters of greenhouse gases such as China or India, but also Australia, Brazil and Mexico have not yet played along as it would be necessary to achieve the goal: to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in a pre-industrial comparison in order to mitigate the greatest destructive forces of unchecked climate change.
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Flasbarth also sees immense progress in the economy
Flasbarth knows: In the end, no country in the world is on this course, not even Germany. But he sees immense progress, including in the economy. In the past few days it has become very clear that the various industries are on their way to becoming climate neutral, according to Flasbarth. Environmentalists acknowledge “some promising announcements” in the first week, including those of several countries to phase out coal. Numerous financial institutions would stop funding new coal-fired power plants. This after the 20 largest industrialized and emerging countries had committed to an end to such financing through public funds.
Nevertheless, the international community is currently heading for global warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Emissions are rising and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are at a peak.
“The size of the task may seem impossible,” said Flasbarth recently to the “Spiegel”. But since the Paris Climate Agreement was sealed in the French capital in 2015, there has been a new dynamic – and he warned against belittling it. Of course, a number of countries would have to step up again. And in the future, too, there will always have to be tightening. “But we shouldn’t exaggerate a single climate summit.”
Flasbarth thinks it is good and right that the international community meets again physically and speaks personally after a year of corona pause. At the beginning of his career, he thought the annual ritual of the international community was not very profitable, but has now become indispensable for progress in climate protection worldwide. “There are conflicts that can only be resolved personally,” says Flasbarth, who remembers a conference at which he and a minister “walked four rounds around a sports field at one o’clock in the morning” to find a solution. Not everything is rational in diplomacy.
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