climate Archives - understand-culture

A Matter for Professionals

On 10 March 2019 the FDP leader Christian Lindner commented on the school strikes for the climate. Children and young people, he said, could not be expected to see all the global connections, what is technically sensible and what is economically feasible. Das ist eine Sache für Profis. (That is a matter for professionals.) The organizers of Fridays for Future replied: Profis beim Thema Klimaschutz sind Wissenschaftler*innen. (The professionals on climate protection are scientists.) In March 2019, according to the initiative, more than 23,000 scientists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland signed a statement that supported the students. Volker Quaschning, a Berlin professor of renewable energy systems, said: Wir sind die Profis und sagen: Die junge Generation hat Recht. (We are the professionals, and we say: the young generation is right.)

Neither side questioned that the experts should decide. They argued only about who the experts were.

Freedom Across Generations

Since 1994, Article 20a of the Basic Law has said: Der Staat schützt auch in Verantwortung für die künftigen Generationen die natürlichen Lebensgrundlagen, the state protects the natural foundations of life, also in its responsibility for future generations. On 24 March 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the Climate Protection Act was partly unconstitutional. The act set no adequate reductions for the years after 2030. The emissions it allowed until 2030 would therefore greatly reduce the room left after 2030. The court called for a verhältnismäßige Verteilung von Freiheitschancen über die Generationen, a proportionate distribution of opportunities for freedom across the generations. On 12 May 2021, the cabinet brought the target for climate neutrality forward from 2050 to 2045.

The Hundred-Year Flood, Plus Fifteen Percent

German flood protection is planned around a defined flood, the HQ100. It is a flood that occurs at a given place statistically once in a hundred years. Under the Water Resources Act, the states must designate by regulation the areas such a flood would cover. In 2004, Bavaria introduced a Klimaänderungszuschlag, a climate change surcharge, for planning flood defenses. It is a flat 15 percent added to the HQ100.

Who Should Have Sounded the Alarm

In the July 2021 flood, twelve residents of a home for people with disabilities died in Sinzig, in the Ahr valley. The district administrator of Ahrweiler, Jürgen Pföhler, was accused of raising the alarm far too late and ordering only a partial evacuation. He rejected the responsibility. The technical operations command, he said, had been responsible for alerting the population. Prosecutors opened an investigation on August 6, 2021. In April 2024, the prosecutors in Koblenz announced that he would not be charged.

Can tourism in Germany adapt to climate change?

September 2021. Deutsche Welle. Before devastating floods swept across western Germany in mid-July, killing 184 people, Germany’s Ahr valley was a popular destination for wine lovers and hikers.

But now, there is little left for tourists to explore: Vineyards have been destroyed, trails and roads have been washed away. It will take years for tourism in the region to recover. The flooding could be a wakeup call for other touristic regions in Germany to adapt to climate change — or suffer the consequences.