‘A better world than before’
When the global community decided in Paris in 2015 that it must not get warmer than 1.5 degrees – measured against the pre-industrial age – by the end of our century, we were on a climate pathway of 3.5 degrees warming.
Now, at the 29th World Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, we are on a warming path of 2.7 degrees. Although this is progress, it is still a long way from the agreed 1.5 degrees.
Worldwide, renewable energies have been growing by 30 per cent per year for several years and the number of electric cars by 50 per cent per year. The prices for solar and wind power have fallen by over 90 per cent since 2050 – and the prices for storage technologies and batteries have fallen by a similar amount. There has also been great progress in areas where sustainability was not even mentioned just a few years ago: When it comes to steel, cement and glass, we now talk about green technologies as a matter of course.
However, if we want to achieve the 1.5-degree target, we need to accelerate green progress once again and at least double it. After all, greenhouse gas emissions will still be rising globally in 2024. Only in the EU will they have fallen by eight per cent in 2024. Here, the expansion of renewables is displacing the use of coal, gas and oil. Overall, the EU states are currently emitting 37 per cent fewer greenhouse gases than in 1990, and the target is 55 per cent fewer by 2035.
The 29th World Climate Conference in Azerbaijan ends in a dispute over money. So far, the industrialised countries that have caused climate change have pledged 100 billion dollars a year to help poor countries switch to renewable energies. But the global South wants more than a trillion a year in future, i.e. over 1,000 billion. That is the demand in Azerbaijan. There will probably be a few more climate conferences to argue about this. However, this demand is fundamentally justified, as the poor countries are primarily the victims of climate change, which they did not cause.
However, as renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper, this dispute can also be resolved with fewer monetary demands. At the end of the current world climate conference, there is already talk of 300 billion euros as a compromise figure.
Tagesschau asked the co-founder of the New Climate Institute, climate researcher Niklas Höhne, at the climate conference in Baku: ‘Despite everything, what gives you the most hope?
Höhne: ‘If we get this climate transformation right, the world will be a better place afterwards than it was before. If we have a lot of renewable energy, then it will be favourable. Then we won’t have to import energy from despots with whom we don’t really want to do business. Then the air will be better.
If local public transport works and is cheap and is always there when you want it and you get a lift from A to B, then that’s a great thing. If cities are greener, there is more space for pedestrians and cyclists and fewer cars on the road, then cities are more liveable.
If we get this right, the world will be a better place afterwards. I think that’s the approach we need to take: Climate policy is something that moves us forward and not something that means doing without.’
