Five years before the rest of the world, namely in 2045, Germany wants to be completely climate neutral.
(Photo: Reuters)
Each event format follows certain patterns. At the world climate conferences it has been a common practice for years that the host country presents the summit results as rosy, while the civil society organizations are disappointed.
Exactly this pattern was followed on Saturday by Alok Sharma, host and president of COP 26, that things had been moved forward. Climate activist Lisa Neubauer, on the other hand, knew shortly before the end of the conference that organizing the global turning point had been missed. In the end, after the usual extension, most of those involved came to the conclusion that it was a small miracle that something had been agreed at all – for example, to abolish subsidies for oil, gas and coal, which climate protectionists have been doing for many years demand.
World climate conferences are strictly ritualized processes until their regular theatrical end after extension. But rituals don’t save the climate. On the one hand there is a series of solemn confessions, cloudy declarations of intent and non-binding self-commitments, on the other hand unrealizable expectations are aroused. It is undisputed that climate conferences like the one in Glasgow trigger unimagined group dynamic processes, lead to gains in knowledge and stimulate additional commitment.
However, the resulting commitments are not resilient. In the end, it is up to each country whether it behaves more or less in an exemplary manner. Germany has decided to be particularly exemplary – regardless of what the others are doing.
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Most recently, this was reflected in a change in the law that is globally unprecedented: five years before the rest of the world, namely in 2045, Germany wants to be completely climate-neutral. There was no serious impact assessment. Nobody asked questions about efficiency, costs and technical feasibility either. Nobody wanted to deal with the question of whether others would participate.
The role of a role model is becoming expensive, there is no doubt about that. In the past, Germany opted for special ways of protecting the climate, which are costly and inefficient and weaken entire industries in international competition.
Many companies are trapped. You want to move forward on the path to climate neutrality. However, they are left in the lurch when it comes to implementation. There are concrete examples of this.
Horrific CO2 costs
Thousands of industrial medium-sized companies in Germany bear horrendous CO2 costs that their competitors beyond German borders do not know or do not know to the same extent. Fossil fuels are often the only solution for heat-controlled processes, which are the core of their work. In many cases, companies do not have any alternatives. Anyone who does not even have access to natural gas due to the lack of appropriate lines and therefore has to use coal must feel cynic if they are told that they can use climate-neutral hydrogen. It just doesn’t exist.
Many companies are penalized for many years for CO2 emissions that they can only avoid by shutting down their operations. Competitors from abroad like to step in the breach – and often produce under more climate-damaging conditions.
As a lonely pioneer, Germany is endangering its industrial base and weakening climate protection. The format of the world climate conferences is only suitable to a limited extent to change that. For many countries the prospect of being able to duck back when things get serious is too tempting. You make yourself comfortable in the slipstream of the trailblazers.
As long as this is the case, trailblazers must look for comrades-in-arms who are also already ready to enter into binding commitments. The idea of founding climate clubs in which states jointly set binding goals and also implement them is the right instrument for this. So far, however, the climate clubs are nothing more than a vague idea. Germany is well advised to change that as quickly as possible. Anyone who relies solely on the world climate conference is acting negligently.
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