World Climate Conference in Glasgow: Politics and business warn of failure

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The participants of the World Climate Conference will meet on the Scottish Event Campus from Sunday

Photo: BEN STANSALL / AFP

The consequences of the climate crisis can already be clearly felt - and could become even more dramatic if it is not possible to limit the dangerous global warming to 1.5 degrees as possible.

How this can be done will be discussed from Sunday in Glasgow at the world climate conference.

There is no shortage of reminders in advance that the conference has to be a success.

At the same time, the requests to speak also make it clear how difficult the negotiations are likely to be - and how different the interests of individual participants are.

The industry is “concerned” that the “urgently needed global success for climate protection will again fail”, said the president of the BDI industrial association, Siegfried Russwurm, to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

A global problem like climate change can only be solved globally.

"Going it alone nationally is counterproductive," said Russwurm.

"It is dangerous and harms the climate if the differences in ambition for climate protection increase." This shifts emissions to countries with less stringent climate protection measures and places a one-sided burden on domestic companies.

Deutsche Bank boss Christian Sewing is also calling for uniform standards around the world before the start of the conference.

"We absolutely have to develop standards that apply globally or are at least compatible so that a company does not have to use different standards along its supply chain," he told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung".

Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) expects a joint international show of strength as the result from Glasgow.

The international community of states must counteract climate change more quickly and more ambitiously.

"Every country must do its utmost to help." The way to an efficient circular economy is paved by investments in science and research.

"It is high time we did a lot more"

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also calls for more efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We have to get better, no question about it," she says. "If we stop trying, the consequences will be dramatic." She expects the countries to formulate their goals more ambitiously and to explain plausibly how they want to achieve them. “We are not yet on the road to success and it is high time we did a lot more. We only have this decade to set the course and avoid reaching irreversible tipping points. "

David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, warned that if the world community were serious about the 1.5 degree target, "nice ambitions must turn into clear and feasible measures".

The G20 countries, which are responsible for 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, play a pioneering role in this.

"We have to see that each of them follows the example of the EU and pledges to achieve climate neutrality by 2050."

"Anyone who just talks and doesn't deliver in Glasgow will be caught quickly"

Federal Environment Minister Schulze, however, dampened expectations of the summit. "It would be a mistake to expect world climate conferences to spontaneously save the world - the challenge is too complex for that," she told the newspapers of the editorial network in Germany. Climate conferences didn't work on the all-or-nothing principle. "This is a long-distance run in which every stage has its meaning."

Development Minister Gerd Müller (CSU) warned against "massive refugee flows" due to climate change.

The consequences of severe global warming "would be dramatic, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable countries," he told the newspapers of the Funke media group.

In the hardest hit countries, the plants would die first, then the cattle, and then the people.

That is why the world community must "consistently take countermeasures globally".

Scotland's Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned against a loss of international image if states fail to meet climate targets.

The meeting is "the greatest, if not the last chance for the world to avert the climate catastrophe," said Sturgeon.

"Anyone who just talks and doesn't deliver in Glasgow will be caught quickly." She called for "a good result" from the world climate conference.

Parallel to the G20 summit in Rome, the world climate conference begins in Glasgow on Sunday.

The G20 countries play the decisive role here because they are responsible for more than three quarters of emissions.

However, two important heads of state are missing in Rome: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not travel because of the pandemic.

svs / AFP / Reuters