The fires of the present were kindled decades ago
I am the son of a coal merchant. After the Second World War, I helped my father carry coal down into the cellars of people’s homes in our village in Baden. Back then, we unwittingly kindled the fires that we can now barely put out.
And the latest findings in climate science suggest that these fires could soon become far worse. Coal merchants were climate sinners, just as gas and oil merchants are climate sinners today. In Germany, coal was the foundation of our economic miracle.
Economic growth fuelled by coal brought us our prosperity. And today? Today we’re footing the bill. And our children and grandchildren will certainly have to foot the bill too. The warnings issued by the Club of Rome as early as 1972 about the consequences of endless economic growth went virtually unheeded. The scientists were, in fact, ridiculed for their predictions.
But what can we do to prevent things from getting even worse?
Redevelop cities, restore wetlands, switch rapidly to renewable energy and replant forests. If we want to maintain our standard of living to any reasonable extent, then climate protection and the economy must finally be considered together within the federal government as well. For it is becoming clear that climate protection does not cause massive economic damage. Climate protection not only safeguards nature and people, but also helps the economy.
We do not have problems of understanding today, as the post-war generation did, but ‘merely’ problems of implementation. And the 14,000 heat-related deaths in Germany in 2026 – recorded by 9 August alone – should serve as a wake-up call. Scientists are convinced that most of these lives could have been saved through preventive policies.
Climate protection is the great collective task of the future
That is why the initiative by the SPD ministers in the Berlin government for greater heatwave and climate protection is exactly the right approach. But the CDU/CSU side of the coalition is still hesitating to recognise this urgent need and take action. The federal government must finally take on more responsibility for heatwave and climate protection and must no longer pass the buck to the federal states and local authorities.
Climate change does not stop at national borders. Climate protection must also finally be enshrined in the Basic Law. The CDU and the CSU should not be surprised by their falling poll ratings if they continue to put the brakes on climate protection rather than stepping on the accelerator. Nothing contributes to ‘fire weather’ as much as climate change. By this summer at the latest, the majority of voters will realise this too.
The EU has demonstrated that climate protection and the economy go hand in hand today. In the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by a third since 1990, whilst the economy has grown by two-thirds. Yet Germany, of all countries, is currently the biggest obstacle to climate protection within the EU, even though we were once among the pioneers with the Renewable Energy Sources Act in 2000.
The extent to which Germany and Europe will be affected by heatwaves in the future depends very much on the decisions taken today. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research warns that, if too little is done to combat climate change, forest fires in Europe could triple by the end of the century.
How on earth can we ever justify this potential outcome to our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren?
