Comment by German Ambassador Holger Michael on the Durban Climate Change Negotiations
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Climate change is the definitive challenge of the 21st century. Changes in the climate destroy the basis on which human life subsists; drought, for instance, leads to shortages in food and water. Rising sea levels are already threatening the territories of small island states and vast stretches of the coastline in countries such as Bangladesh.
The international community, however, still has to meet the challenges posed by climate change. Global CO2emissions went up again in 2010, global temperatures are already 0.8°C higher than before industrialization, and sea levels rose twice as fast between 1993 and 2003 as they did in the preceding decade; icebergs and glaciers are melting at record speeds. We all need the present climate change negotiations in Durban to come up with tangible results.
Germany is aware of how pressing this problem is. We are therefore doing what we can to mitigate it effectively. Thanks to our national reduction measures, we are within the targets which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends for industrialized countries: we intend to reduce our emissions by 40% until 2020 and by 80 95% until 2050. Germany set a structural transformation in motion that will in future serve us well also economically. By switching to a low-carbon economy, we want to prove that tackling climate change is compatible with economic development. We want to support others as they pursue this path to success; going green can be an opportunity for everyone!
At the highest level internationally, too, we want to create awareness that we have to act now to tackle climate change. It was under Germany’s presidency that the United Nations Security Council, on 20 July, unanimously acknowledged for the first time ever that climate change poses a threat to international security.
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Nonetheless, even if these efforts bear fruit and the global economy starts producing significantly lower quantities of greenhouse gas, we know that many countries are already suffering the consequences of climate change. That is why the German Government has been assisting countries particularly affected by climate change for years. Our partners in developing countries and emerging economies receive support for projects to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Between 2010 and 2012, our Government is providing these countries with a total of 1.26 billion Euro in additional funds for mitigation and adaptation, within the scope of the industrialized countries’ fast start finance initiative agreed in Copenhagen in 2009. Germany stands ready to play its part in financing such measures in developing countries in the long term as well.
Parallel to these specific measures, we also need to reach a comprehensive agreement in the international climate change negotiations which encompasses all the big emitters – including those which were classed as developing countries for the 1992 Framework Convention but have since become major economies. Only when we finally stop pointing the finger, and create the legal certainty that no country will be at a disadvantage or be able to opt out, can we combat climate change effectively.
This is an extremely ambitious enterprise. Copenhagen saw the failure of the first attempt to establish such a comprehensive agreement and simultaneously resolve the details of everything from funding to legal status to rules for including forests in calculations. That is why we are playing it safe this time by addressing the various issues step by step. The countries have been negotiating the details since Cancún – where they made great progress – and will embed them in the necessary new framework once it is established.
We are holding this stance in Durban too. Shoulder to shoulder with many developing countries, small island states and LDCs, we are working for a robust, legally binding climate change agreement. That is the only way for us to achieve our common goal of capping global warming at 2ºC and so fulfil our obligation to future generations. I am convinced that we cannot afford, economically or otherwise, to hold off on combating climate change until its effects become even more drastic.
For Bangladesh as one of the most vulnerable countries worldwide, Germany has already made considerable contributions to support adaptation measures and low-carbon development. Germany has initiated projects to help conserve, maintain and rehabilitate ecosystems such as wetlands and coastal forests and to adapt to climate change. In 2011 alone, an amount of 17.6 million Euros has been committed as additional money for climate change projects in Bangladesh.
