A commentary on the occasion of the IPCC report
22.03.2023 / Column / Commentary by Christian Heep
The calendar spring started with another dry spell. Another drought like the last twelve years. Extreme weather events, 81% of protected habitats and 63% of populations of protected animals and plants are in poor condition, four out of five trees in Germany are diseased, species extinction, heatwaves, flooding, health risks and the list goes on. We are currently at +1.1 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. The final report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is an urgent recommendation for action to politicians, assumes a temperature increase of 2.8 degrees by the end of the century. As every tenth of a degree counts, according to the report, the rapidly closing window of opportunity increases the pressure to act enormously. These 100% accepted scientific principles and findings must now finally be translated into consistent government action as quickly as possible. The report calls for drastic measures from politicians and society. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of multiple disasters and makes gloomy predictions. Nevertheless, we must not lose hope.
Which is difficult given the ignorance of political action: Wissing’s veto on the ban on new car registrations is shattering fossil-free ambitions in Europe, hydrogen and eFuels are acting as stirrup holders for an internal combustion technology that is unsuitable for sustainably improving the state of our systems and the IFO Institute is predicting deindustrialisation on an unprecedented scale as if they have no idea about macroeconomic contexts and completely forget to mention that if we continue to produce internationally uncompetitive products, we will more or less jeopardise or lose all jobs. will be jeopardised or lost. This inevitably brings to mind the last attempts to save the carriage industry, Nokia or a revival of the CRT television. That’s part of our world. Because all this is not frustrating enough, we are also facing a bright future in the newly invoked nuclear age, if it is up to the will of quite a few politicians, villages are being dredged up for coal mining and the energy transition is not being driven forward as much as it should be. We can only hope that the next steps will not be taken at the next climate conference in Dubai, which will not take place until the end of this year.
But there are solutions and room for manoeuvre. We still have it in our own hands: wind summit, solar boom, heat transition, emissions trading, climate justice. Germany and Brussels are working on nature conservation laws to protect and restore a fifth of the EU’s land and sea area, a biodiversity conference with a legislative proposal to restore nature, an action programme for natural climate protection is to be presented to the German cabinet and battery-powered new mobility is said to have great potential to reduce emissions.
Good intentions, but once again just a lot of words and written declarations of intent that will finally have to be measured against the reality of actual feasibility. More than ever, we are committed to a systemic transformation process; only recently with an open letter on the subject of commercial vehicle subsidies or this week with a special commission in preparation for an association hearing on the subject of LEV / micromobility. We must finally set the course for the future in order to reliably establish planning and financing security for our companies and further accelerate a prosperous green economy with the associated processes. When, if not now. It will soon be several degrees past twelve.
The products, projects and solution approaches of our member companies in the German eMobility Association can actually give us cause for optimism here, as they show that an incredible amount of potential has already been realised and the technology is ready. All that is missing now is the political drive with the corresponding steering effect to take on the challenges as a green economy worldwide and turn them into real opportunities for improving our livelihoods. May the Force be with us.
⇢WDR: IPCC report: How we can still slow down climate change (in German)
