A German Climate Strategy - Getting Real

WGBU, the German government's Advisory Council on Global Change, has released a paper for climate action in advance of the Glasgow climate summit.

The most contentious demand is for nations to accept binding commitments. No more meaningless aspirational targets and empty promises. (Yes, Canada, that's you) 


Up to now, countries have only been obliged to submit short-term 'nationally determined contributions' (NDCs) to climate-change mitigation. These need to become far more ambitious and to start promoting policies conducive to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

In the WBGU's view, therefore, countries must also be obliged to formulate and communicate long-term strategies that go beyond climate neutrality and aim for global climate stabilization, offering guidelines for strengthening NDCs and a basis for an internationally coordinated sustainability policy. This view was given a valuable boost by a ruling handed down on 24 March 2021 by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, which imposed on German legislators a constitutional obligation to formulate long-term strategies to reduce CO2 emissions beyond 2030

Long-term strategies should contain three separate priorities for this purpose: they should first stipulate a rapid and complete phase-out of fossil-fuel use, second, aim at the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of ecosystems, and third, make strategic preparations for the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. The strategies should aim for multiple benefits with other sustainability dimensions, such as health and poverty reduction. Finally, it is extremely important to take into account the international impacts of the measures laid down in national long-term strategies, such as the consequences of planned imports of green hydrogen. Furthermore, the countries should commit in Glasgow to harmonizing their Covid-19 programmes for overcoming the consequences of the pandemic with their long-term climate-policy strategies.

Reading between the lines this sounds like a call for Schellnhuber's  "induced implosion" of the fossil energy industry. Shut them down, especially coal and bitumen. Hand them a bill for the damage they've done. Then use the cleanest fossil fuel revenues during transition to fund development of alternative clean energy.

Does this have a chance of adoption? Probably not if the past is any indication. Yet it does speak truth to power. 

Comments

  1. John B.July 7, 2021 at 3:04 AM

    "Countries harmonizing programmes to overcome consequences" sounds a bit too much like Communism to me. At the very least, they're talking about an unprecedented attack on freedom and liberty. Furthermore, it will interfere the nicer plan now being implemented under the direction of Harper & Associates.

    "Our populations will naturally look to the centre-right for economic answers to the coming recession and budgetary crises. At the same [time], as supply chains are being rebuilt and restructured, our parties must not lose sight of the importance of freer trade."

    We must not meddle with the primal forces of nature as they are defined in the Libertarian Handbook for Disturbed Teenagers.

    Hand me a bill? Woah horsey! We've already externalized the costs of those damages and that success didn't come cheap. If you insist, you can forward it to my post office box in Libertopia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibJuly 7, 2021 at 6:31 AM

      John, how do you imagine we can minimize the impacts of this climate emergency without collaboration and consensus?

      This is a truly global crisis. Everybody will be hit. As usual it will be the poorest that will take the worst of it while the wealthy nations, those who contributed the lion's share of greenhouse gases, manage their options.

      Harper, please. He's proof that the Conservatives' problems don't stop with leaders like Scheer and O'Toole. They're ideologues flogging antiquated theories out of touch with today's Canada.

      Sideshow Steve hasn't evolved one bit since we finally threw him out six years ago. That's probably because his only employment option is to keep singing the old tunes his core supporters love to hear.

      It's sad to see the collapse of any vestige of a dynamic Conservative party because that just makes it too easy for the Libs. The Tories have set the bar so low that Justin isn't challenged to govern as a liberal.

      Delete

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