IPCC report: must not waste time on climate – German env min

The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, released today, shows the urgent need for ambitious climate action, according to the German government. In a press release, environment minister Svenja Schulze said the key message of the report is that “we must not waste any more time on climate protection”.
Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary in the environment ministry, said at a press briefing in Berlin that the statement of the scientists that the 1.5 degree goal is achievable is a “central and positive message”. However, the IPCC report contained “unsettling depictions” of the “huge difference” between worlds with a global warming of 1.5° and 2° Celsius. “If one knows that at 1.5 degrees some hundred million people less are in poverty, this must be relevant for the decision-making,” said Flasbarth. The IPCC report states that in order to reach the 1.5° Celsius goal, global net human-caused CO₂ emissions must be reduced by 45 percent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. The environment ministry could not immediately say what this meant for Germany’s national target. The state secretary said he is sure that the messages of the “alarming report” would be heard by the members of Germany’s coal exit commission, which is to decide a phase-out path by the end of 2018.
Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II, said the bottlenecks on climate do not lie on the physical-chemical or technological side. “We need a charismatic political leadership that will offensively bring climate goals into society,” said Pörtner at the press briefing. “Our current political leadership and statements in the political landscape tend to go in the other direction,” said Pörtner.

Find the BMU press release in German here, and the report and summaries in English here.

For background, read the CLEW dossier The energy transition and climate change and the Commission watch – Managing Germany’s coal phase-out.