At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, Foreign Minister Baerbock compares current challenges with the industrial revolution: she speaks of new steam engines and old looms. The Greens emphasized that although Germany is again relying more on coal, it should make progress in this crisis.
In the fight against climate change, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called on all states to switch to renewable energies quickly. "The old fossil world is inexorably in decline, the new world is one of renewable energies," said the Green politician in Berlin at the end of the Petersberg climate dialogue. "Everyone can now decide whether to join this wave of progress or whether to be overwhelmed by it." As a rich industrial country, Germany wants to move forward on the path to climate neutrality.
At the press conference, Baerbock said: "We are facing a global upheaval that can only be compared to the industrial revolution in the 19th century. The steam engine of the 21st century today is solar, wind and hydrogen plants and coal, gas and oil are the old loom."
The German Foreign Minister and her Egyptian counterpart Samih Schukri called for an immediate change of course in order to get the climate crisis under control. "As a world as a whole, we simply cannot afford any further delays and compromises," warned Baerbock. "We cannot postpone the climate crisis. And that's why we cannot postpone the fight against the climate crisis either." Schukri emphasized: "We have to take action now. We have to act now. We have to make progress everywhere and make sure that nobody is left behind." Schukri again called for help for the countries particularly affected by climate change.
The climate crisis is not just another crisis, said Baerbock. "Rather, it lays itself down as a large, overriding crisis over all other crises and acts like a fire accelerator." More recently, security and trust have been further lost, first by the pandemic, then by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. This shakes the foundations of the international order and drives the energy and global hunger crisis further. "In this situation, there is a great danger that old conflicts will break out again, including in the climate negotiations," warned Baerbock.
Baerbock explained that in view of the energy crisis, Germany will use more coal for a short period of time or keep more coal-fired power plants in reserve. But she made it clear at the two-day conference: "We will not deviate an inch from our climate goals. On the contrary: we will get out of the fossils even faster." Germany will massively increase its ambitions in expanding renewable energies and increasing energy efficiency. "We stand firmly on the goal of climate neutrality by 2045."
Germany and Egypt hosted the conference in Berlin. Their goal was also to set the course for the COP27 world climate conference in early November in the Egyptian coastal town of Sharm el Sheikh. Schukri emphasized that COP27 should be a climate conference for the implementation of previously agreed goals.
Even before the conclusion of the Petersberg climate dialogue, non-governmental organizations expressed their disappointment. "We had hoped for more initiative," Greenpeace climate expert Bastian Neuwirth told the editorial network Germany. The environmental organization BUND had also promised more. "The Petersberg climate dialogue falls short of the expectations of setting milestones for the climate negotiations in November," said the chairman Olaf Bandt to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
