By the beginning of October this year, more electric cars had already been registered in Germany than in the entire previous year. And among banks and financial institutions, the demand for green, sustainable forms of investment is greater than ever before. Then there is the steel industry. She gets involved in projects that promote green hydrogen and thus ensure clean steel in the near future.
The three examples show that people and business are on their way to more sustainability and climate neutrality. They strive for an economy that takes no more from our planet than it gives it, and at the same time maintains our prosperity.
I travel to Glasgow with a mixture of hope and determination. The climate crisis is an existential threat. This decade is all or nothing.
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For me, the conference will be a success if we, as an international community, succeed in meeting the great common climate target. We need to agree on concrete steps to reduce emissions in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
The events of summer made it all too clear to us why we must act. Extreme weather events, such as the severe floods in Germany and Belgium or the severe forest fires in southern Europe.
Such phenomena will increase due to climate change. The United Nations recently presented the IPCC report. He leaves no doubt. Climate change is man-made. But precisely because it is man-made, we can also take action against it.
Europe wants to be the first climate-neutral continent
Our plan is in place. Europe aims to be the first climate-neutral continent on earth by 2050. To achieve this, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030.
The European Commission launched the European Green Deal two years ago. In April we cast our goals in the first European climate protection law. We are delivering what European companies have been demanding for years: clear, credible and reliable goals that give them planning security for the future.
And many in the world are now following us: the USA, Japan, South Korea and South Africa. They are all committed to binding climate targets. It’s good.
But it is just as important to back up these goals with concrete projects. Here, too, Europe is a role model. We are the first major economy to have submitted the roadmap to implement the goals – sector by sector, sector by sector.
In doing so, we are implementing exactly what the Federal Constitutional Court and other European courts have warned: We do not simply pass difficult decisions on to future generations. We act now and show the way forward.
We rely on tried and tested instruments from our market economy, such as expanded emissions trading. It promotes the switch to clean energy. We are investing in smarter cars, more express train connections and more climate-friendly production lines.
This roadmap towards climate neutrality is also financially deposited in our budget. The European budget together with our Next Generation EU reconstruction plan amounts to 2.1 trillion euros.
More than a third of this money is earmarked for the European Green Deal – for example for the climate-friendly renovation of old buildings, for a comprehensive network of charging stations, for electric cars or the expansion of renewable energies.
How much these investments pay off is shown by the progress made in renewable energies: The production costs in renewable energies have fallen dramatically in the last decade, while gas prices, for example, have risen rapidly. And renewable energy not only helps to protect the climate, it also reduces our dependence on fossil fuels from abroad.
Social balance through the climate social fund
The climate change is a fundamental transformation. It demands a lot from us, but it also offers enormous opportunities. Europe’s companies recognized the potential of innovative and clean technology much earlier than others.
This will enable them to secure market leadership and jobs in the European internal market with 450 million consumers. And they can also use this lead on the world markets.
But this transformation will only be successful if we take a basic principle of the social market economy to heart: social equality. That is why we have proposed a new climate social fund with a volume of more than 70 billion euros for the future.
We can only save the world climate together. Similar to Europe, the other large economies must also explain in concrete terms how they want to achieve their goals. This is what the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow is all about. The conference will be an hour of truth for the world community. Every country is responsible!
Less developed countries in particular are dependent on external funding for their climate measures, and that will also be an issue in Glasgow. The major economies have pledged to allocate $ 100 billion annually to climate action in the poorest countries by 2025.
We in Europe have been fulfilling this obligation for years. Team Europe – that is, the EU and its member states – contributes 25 billion dollars to the common goal every year. And we are ready to provide an additional $ 5 billion to fund these climate actions through 2027.
Unfortunately, other large industrialized nations are in some cases considerably behind in implementing the global goal. We expect our partners to increase their funding commitments too.
The path to climate neutrality is a challenge for all of us. But we have already proven what we are capable of. Since 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 25 percent. In the same period, our economy grew by more than 60 percent.
Strengthening climate-friendly growth
In addition, we are much better positioned today to actually achieve our savings targets. We have more modern technologies, we have more expertise and we have the necessary investments to strengthen climate-friendly growth. Most importantly, people are more committed than ever to protecting the climate.
The many young people who take to the streets, as well as the parents and grandparents who want to leave their children and granddaughters a healthy planet. We owe you in particular that our European Green Deal will be a success. Good results in Glasgow are an extremely important stopover on this path.
The author: Ursula von der Leyen is President of the European Commission.
More: UN climate chief warns of the failure of the conference in Glasgow.