Whe importance of a country at the climate conference can be seen from who is allowed to overstay the speaking time. At the meeting of the heads of state and government at the start of the two-week conference in Egypt, each statement was supposed to last three minutes. French President Emmanuel Macron was not finished even after a quarter of an hour. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the other hand, was much shorter and was finished after about six minutes.
Before that, he had said that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees was the “central task of our time”. A world on which, according to United Nations calculations, more than eight billion people have been living for the first time a few days ago – just about one percent of them in Germany. And yet the federal government appears self-confident, wants to make progress in Sharm el-Sheikh and not be one of the brakemen. Is the federal government overdoing it with this claim?
“A lot of eyes on Germany”
“Because Germany has every opportunity, a lot of eyes are on Germany,” said Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck far from the desert sands of the Sinai Peninsula in his accompanying video for the climate conference. If Germany doesn’t make it, then the others won’t try anymore, is the Green politician’s argument.
Indeed, in Sharm el-Sheikh, where nearly 200 countries are scrambling for alliances, many are watching what the EU’s most populous country, the world’s fourth-largest economy, is doing to confront climate change.
In Egypt, a South African bishop can be heard praising Germany’s early coal phase-out. As a British diplomat replies, Germany is increasingly relying on coal again in the current energy crisis, albeit only temporarily. How activists from South Africa and Colombia are taking things too slowly and are demanding an end to all fossil fuels in Germany. How surprised some are that Germany is giving up nuclear energy and others see it as a role model.
“Germany is playing a very helpful role in the negotiations in order to move forward with difficult decisions,” says David Levaï, Senior Fellow of the United Nations Foundation. The federal government’s negotiators made a significant contribution to the fact that for the first time the official program of the conference discussed who would pay for the damage that climate change was already causing.
Angry developing countries
The federal government has a whole “Team Germany” compete in Egypt. Various ministers have sent their secretaries of state to press ahead with the negotiations before taking over next week. State Secretary Jennifer Morgan from the Federal Foreign Office heads the German delegation. It describes the goal that Germany should act as a bridge builder between industrialized countries and those countries that have been hit hardest by climate change.
Germany is well positioned for mediation with experienced negotiators, and can also rely on strong institutions such as the German Society for International Cooperation or the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, which also enjoy widespread trust in the Global South.
The representatives of the federal government in Sharm el-Sheikh, on the other hand, have to fight for this trust. The developing countries range from disappointed to angry that the 100 billion dollars promised annually by the rich countries for climate protection have not yet been achieved. Morgan now wants to change that: “Germany is striving for an international leadership role,” she said on Friday in Egypt. Is that enough to fulfill the desired pontifical role?
Compensation for climate damage
Again and again the German state secretaries have to listen to heavy criticism. During a panel discussion, Palau’s Environment Minister recalled that he was not simply fighting for any political goal, but “whether I, as a government representative, still have a country that I can represent at all”.
The small island nation in the western Pacific is at the mercy of rising sea levels and ever stronger storms. In addition to more money for climate protection and adaptation to its consequences, compensation for what cannot be saved is also needed. The answer of the German State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth: “That has to be on the negotiating table.”
Of course, Germany is sitting there with the shortcoming that its own ambitions – also due to the energy crisis resulting from the Russian war against Ukraine – have not yet been achieved. Germany is still one of the major emitters of greenhouse gases, and the country will probably miss its own climate targets again this year. “The federal government went to Egypt like a schoolboy who hasn’t done his homework,” criticized CDU climate politician Thomas Heilmann.
German activists, who are also represented in large numbers in Egypt, are now demanding results all the faster. Germany has pledged another billion euros for forest protection. The Global Shield, a kind of risk insurance for climate damage, is to be presented next week. Behind the scenes, “Team Germany” is working on new partnerships that should enable emerging countries to develop and at the same time rely on renewable energies.
And then it’s about money. Germany believes that countries like China, which have long since developed into economic powerhouses and drivers of greenhouse gases, have a duty to do so. Before the conference, many feared that diplomacy would not stand a chance in times of war. After all, says Jennifer Morgan, “you can already say that this is not the case”. A result will not be available until the end of the conference in a week. The bridge construction has only just begun.
