More and more countries have understood the gravity of the climate situation

Berlin. A few weeks before the United Nations climate conference, federal environment minister Svenja Schultz sees the movement in the right direction. “This week has shown that the world is in motion when it comes to climate protection,” the SPD politician said in Funke Media Group (Saturday) newspapers, referring to recent announcements by the United States, China and Turkey . “More and more countries have understood the gravity of the situation and are moving in the right direction.” It gives courage to the World Climate Conference.

US President Joe Biden announced at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that he would double US climate aid to poor countries. According to President Xi Jinping, China no longer wants to build new coal-fired power plants abroad. And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would present the Paris climate agreement to Turkey’s parliament for a vote – Turkey is one of the few countries that have yet to ratify the agreement.

Schultz made promises

Schulz said the important thing now is that industrialized nations fulfill their joint promise to raise $100 billion annually to fight climate change in developing countries. “Poor states should be able to rely on the promised financial aid from rich countries.” In addition, the “final unanswered question” must be clarified “entirely and by mutual agreement” in the framework of the Paris Agreement. “On this basis, we should be successful in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in the 2020s and thereby ushering in a climate-neutral, more crisis-resistant era.”

Experts agree that much more will have to be done around the world by 2030 if global warming is to stay below two degrees – as agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015. The World Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in early November is considered an important milestone.

Rich countries set a target of spending $100 billion annually on climate protection in poor countries by 2020. According to a recent analysis by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the related expenditure by industrialized countries in 2019 was only around US$79.6 billion.