Cop28: to ramp up climate action, we must all play our part
- The best way to achieve a climate-neutral, resilient future is to accelerate the global green energy transition and ensure a united response to the crisis through more funding and investments in climate partnerships
Regardless of which country you look at, one crisis is evident everywhere: the climate crisis. This crisis is the greatest security challenge of our age. It affects us all – with varying degrees of severity but the same relentlessness.
What gives me hope is that we have the knowledge, technology and instruments to contain the climate crisis together. What we need is political will.
However, as we come together for the climate change conference in Dubai, we will also know that we find ourselves in a race against time – and we have been too slow to date.
Germany believes three points are key here. First, we should hugely ramp up the global energy transition by 2030 – every tonne of carbon dioxide a country emits harms us all. According to the International Panel on Climate Change, we have to work together to decrease global emissions by at least 43 per cent in the course of this decade. Every percentage point reduction in greenhouse gases means fewer droughts, fewer floods and fewer lives lost.
By doing this, we also want to make it clear the transition towards an energy system largely free of fossil fuels has begun.
Secondly, our best tool for tackling the climate crisis is solidarity. That is why we are standing shoulder to shoulder with those who have played the smallest role in bringing about the climate crisis but are now hit hardest.
We know the climate crisis is having effects that can no longer be reversed. That is why we are also pressing ahead with adaptation to climate change and providing special support for developing countries. The contributions of all donors for adaptation should be doubled to US$40 billion by 2025 at the latest. Germany intends to play its part in reaching this target.
To achieve this, it is key that the funds go first and foremost to the most vulnerable states and that all states with the means to do so contribute to the fund. Naturally, this includes the industrialised countries. However, it also includes those states which have earned a lot of money with fossil fuels or have enjoyed high growth rates in the past few years. We all have an obligation.
We can all benefit because every investment in solar panels, green hydrogen or heat insulation technologies is an opportunity for growth, new jobs and a secure energy supply. For this reason, we are expanding climate, energy and development partnerships. They will enable both sides to learn from each other and benefit.
After all, no country should have to decide between development and climate action. Every society has its own path to follow.
It is important that we all have the same goal: a climate-neutral and resilient future in which our children can live in security and prosperity. During the coming days in Dubai, we will have an opportunity to set out on this journey together. We should seize this opportunity.
Annalena Baerbock is foreign minister of Germany