Dear readers,
1.5 or do you prefer well below 2?
Just under half a degree has what it takes for a controversy in the climate scene.
What is meant are the two temperature limits for global warming in 2100 compared to pre-industrial times, which were agreed in the Paris climate treaty as just acceptable.
In Team 1.5, the movement around Fridays for Future plays, which has been committed to the stricter climate protection goal from the start.
On the other side of the spectrum are the more courageous politicians and other social actors who are confident that the earth will not go under even if the temperature rises above 1.5 degrees - although the risks of severe climate damage increase with every decimal place.
The debate about the right way to protect the climate has now also reached the Greens.
Parts of the base had called for the 1.5-degree target to be made the "standard" of green policy.
At their federal party congress on the weekend, the party leadership was just able to prevent a fight vote.
"It is necessary to get on the 1.5-degree path," is a new formulation in the Greens basic program - of course, the party has not really nailed itself down, possible coalition talks for an early government participation in the federal government should make that easier.
As part of fairness, the Greens have opted for a text similar to that which can be read in the Paris climate agreement.
In the decisive passage, the contracting states promise to limit global warming to "well below two degrees" and to make "efforts" to maintain the maximum 1.5 degrees.
Achieving the stricter goal is therefore a classic declaration of intent, and what exactly “well below two” actually means has not been conclusively clarified (read more about the different consequences of global warming by 1.5 or around 2 degrees here).
It is a good sign that the temperature discussion is being conducted in the political mainstream at all.
It wasn't long ago that the main opponents were still talking hotly about whether climate change was a problem at all and whether quick action was necessary.
Fortunately that is over.
The new question about the “correct” limit for global warming is, however, much more difficult to answer.
Can the 1.5 degree target still be achieved?
Basically, the less people heat their planet, the better, every gram less CO2 in the atmosphere is a gain.
But all actors are looking at the climate protection project of the century from their own side: The companies are weighing up what pace of change seems affordable for them, while parties are primarily looking at what they can collect majorities for.
Movements, on the other hand, are based on the objectively or subjectively necessary (on the dispute between Fridays for Future and the Greens, please also read Peter Unfried's column).
Which climate protection goal is most likely to be achieved - or "realistic" - depends on who you ask.
What is striking, however, is that in science too there are increasing voices of those who are critical of the stricter limit of 1.5 degrees of warming because it seems hardly achievable.
Gerald Haug, paleoclimatologist and President of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, recently told SPIEGEL: “We are currently around 1.1 degrees global warming, and air pollution is cooling down around 0.35 degrees.
You have to add that up.
So we are de facto already at 1.5 degrees.
So now it only makes sense to get below 2 degrees. "
The climate physicist Anders Levermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) also sees the fixation on the 1.5 degree target as critical in an interview with the »taz«.
Sad as it is, but the stricter Paris climate target has in fact already been broken, "even if we didn't increase the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, we would get at least half a degree higher." A widespread misunderstanding is also, " that global warming will enter a self-reinforcing spiral if we do not limit it to 1.5 degrees.
Many are afraid of this, but it is not.
So the Fridays can still say that the 1.5 degree limit is desirable, but they cannot say that science requires 1.5 degrees. "
In October, the activists commissioned their own study from the Wuppertal Institute, which was supposed to prove that Germany could very well still make its contribution to achieving the 1.5-degree target without the economy and society collapsing, i.e. Climate neutrality by 2035 is realistic.
This target is currently planned for 2050.
Brigitte Knopf, Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), however, clearly criticized it on Twitter: “The study says that it is 'extremely demanding, but fundamentally possible'.
But that does not qualify.
Just to say that the renovation rate [for buildings] has to be increased from 1 percent to 4 percent or the annual expansion of renewable energies from 6 gigawatts to 25 to 30 gigawatts has nothing to do with feasibility. "
There is practically no analysis of the economic feasibility, costs and distribution issues are addressed, but "to say on this dry basis that it is› extremely demanding, but feasible ‹from an economic point of view, I consider daring."
Personally, she thinks the “necessary upheavals described in the study are so gigantic that I consider a CO2-neutral Germany 2035 to be› not feasible ‹.”
Against this background, the fact that the Greens decided against a clear commitment to the 1.5 degree target at the weekend could prove to be wise.
Because should the evidence condense that the stricter Paris target is actually out of reach, it will be politically sensitive or even dubious to continue to drum for it.
At least the plan to stay “well below two degrees” when the temperature rises is all the more important.
In any case, giving up 1.5 degrees is not a license for fossil laissez faire, but the opposite.
This development would still be tragic, because 20 years ago a global 1.5 degree target would have been a walk in the park: if global emissions had peaked in 2000, they would have been "only" around three percent from then on must be reduced annually, according to the “Emissions Gap Report 2019” of the UN environmental program.
Unfortunately the world missed the chance.
From now on, if you like, I will inform you once a week about the most important things about the climate crisis - stories, research results and the latest developments on the biggest topic of our time. You
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It is the end of an era and - hopefully - the dawn of the future: BMW is relocating the construction of internal combustion engines abroad, the main plant in Munich is to concentrate on electric drives
Photo: DPA
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