Klima

We are facing two major climate challenges. First, to avoid the unmanageable impacts of climate change, through climate action. Secondly, to cope with unavoidable impacts of climate change, through adaptation. Germanwatch is working on equitable and efficient solutions to both.

News

Press Release
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany declares Federal Climate Protection Act partially unconstitutional and strengthens protection of fundamental rights of the youth.

In its decision today, the Federal Constitutional Court has largely accepted the constitutional complaint of nine young people for a humane future: Freedoms and fundamental rights are already being violated today by insufficient climate protection. The legislator must adapt the Federal Climate Protection Act by the end of 2022. Lawyer Dr. Roda Verheyen (Hamburg), who represents the young people, comments on the decision: "Today, the Federal Constitutional Court has set a globally remarkable new standard for climate protection as a human right.

News
Joint public statement by Germanwatch and other NGOs associated with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency
On 21 April 2021, the European Commission published its proposal for a new EU Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD). In a joint public statement, Germanwatch and other NGOs associated with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency welcome many aspects of the proposal, including the development of mandatory sector-specific EU sustainability reporting standards.
Publication
Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation

This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. In the second article of our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", we aim to shed light on the revision the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive carried out by the European Commission.

Publication
Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation

This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. This article kicks off and introduces our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", in which we aim to shed light on the need for and benefits of forward-looking reporting requirements in a changing EU regulatory environment.

Press Release
Independent scientific study by researchers from the University of Oxford and University of Washington offers a clear conclusion: Human activity has caused at least 85% of warming that led to glacial retreat above Huaraz

The Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the collection of evidence in the trial between the Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya and the German utility RWE at the Upper State Court in Hamm (Germany). Nevertheless, a new scientific study is providing credence to the legal claim: a prestigious team of researchers has used climate models to demonstrate that the risk of glacial lake flooding affecting the city of Huaraz is almost entirely due to anthropogenic climate change.

Publication
Who suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather-related Loss Events in 2019 and 2000 to 2019
The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heat waves etc.). The most recent data available — for 2019 and from 2000 to 2019 — were taken into account. The countries and territories affected most in 2019 were Mozambique, Zimbabwe as well as the Bahamas. For the period from 2000 to 2019 Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.
Press Release
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Bahamas hit hardest by heavy storms and their direct implications in 2019 / Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti with highest weather-related losses in the period from 2000 – 2019 / Climate Adaptation Summit starting today needs to discuss how to enhance support for vulnerable countries to deal with increasing climate impacts

Bonn/Berlin (25th Jan. 2021). Vulnerable people in developing countries suffer most from extreme weather events like storms, floods and heat waves, while the impacts of climate change are visible around the globe. Being the deadliest and costliest tropical cyclone in the South-West Indian Ocean, tropical Cyclone Idai was labelled “one of the worst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa” by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Blogpost
Joint Blog Series of Vasudha Foundation and Germanwatch discussing the design of Green & Resilient Recovery in India through renewable energy development and systemic resilience building.

Against the background of the social, economic and political COVID-19 effects on India, all business-as-usual scenarios for economic development and emission trends of Indian and resilient society building are outdated. There is both the possibility of an accelerated structural change to renewable energy, away from fossil fuels and combustion engines and the danger of a massive rebound effect for the emissions path. The same width of possibilities exists between society-wide resilience building and intensified inequality.
The question of what India's recovery strategy - and international support - will look like will create central path dependencies. Especially now, in the new challenge of the Corona crisis, India needs reliable and strong partners such as Germany and the EU to enter into more sustainable pathway through the recovery packages. Strategies for green and resilient recovery and NDC implementation and increase go hand in hand.

Press Release
New ranking of 58 countries with the highest emissions published today: None of the countries surveyed are on a path compatible with the Paris Agreement goals / Emissions are decreasing in more than half of the countries analyzed / USA is at the bottom of the ranking

The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2021 published today paints a mixed picture of progress by the European Union (EU) on climate action. While the Scandinavian EU countries, Portugal and the EU as a whole rank high on the index with relatively good indicators, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic stand out as outliers on climate progress within the bloc. In the overall ranking, the EU has improved from the 22nd place last year to the 16th place this year, almost exclusively thanks to a much better rated climate policy. The CCPI analyzes and compares climate protection across 57 countries (plus EU as a whole) with the highest emissions, which together account for 90 percent of global emissions.

Publication
Published annually since 2005, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an independent monitoring tool for tracking the climate protection performance of 57 countries and the EU. It aims to enhance transparency in international climate politics and enables comparison of climate protection efforts and progress made by individual countries.
Contact

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Policy Director
(until 15.6.24 in Political Focus Time)

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Head of Division – German and European Climate Policy

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Senior Advisor – Climate and Development – India

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Head of Policy Berlin /
Representation of the Policy Director until 15.6.24