Germany’s long-serving leader understands the threat posed by global warming, but her silence on the subject is deafening.
On 23 September 2014, world leaders converged on New York to pledge their support for a new climate deal, at a UN summit hosted by Ban Ki-moon.
While many heads of state were ramping up the rhetoric on a low carbon transition, Angela Merkel was going the other way. The German chancellor, arguably the most powerful person in Europe, was addressing chiefs of energy-hungry sectors from carmakers to chemical giants at German Industry Day.
It indicated a shift in priorities from Merkel’s days as environment minister, when she was instrumental in laying the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol – the original climate treaty.
On Monday, Merkel visits the White House, where climate change is on the agenda. Will US president Barack Obama meet an advocate for ambition, or a protector of heavy industry?
Observers have little doubt that Merkel, a scientist by training, understands the case for tackling climate change.
She is credited with brokering the 1995 Berlin Mandate, an essential precursor to Kyoto, and persuading climate sceptic leaders – notably former US president George W Bush – to take the matter seriously.
“Germany has played an amazing leadership role in the international climate regime and Merkel has been central to that,” says veteran climate negotiator Farhana Yamin, now CEO of Track 0.
“They have always reached out to be a bridge builder but also to place a vision of low carbon and low energy at the heart of the European economy. She has been a fantastic champion."
For the complete article, please see RTCC.
As December’s UN climate summit in Poland rapidly approaches, it is shaping up to be a race against time to prepare the so-called Paris rulebook, which will govern how the landmark climate agreement will actually be implemented.
Members of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday (10 October) in favour of increasing the EU’s Paris Agreement emissions pledge by 2020. They also urged the European Commission to make sure its long-term climate strategy models net-zero emissions for 2050 “at the latest”.
A new USAID report focuses on the intersection of climate exposure and state fragility worldwide. It finds that the factors that make a country vulberable to large-scale conflict are similar to those that make it vulnerable to climate change. The report thus offers a way for global audiences with an interest in climate and security to identify places of high concern.
A big difference. That was the conclusion the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to when it assessed the differences between a 1.5°C and a 2°C warmer world in a landmark special report published in early October. The leading scientific authority on climate change found that the world is likely to pass the 1.5 °C mark between 2030 and 2052 if current emission trends are not interrupted.