Germany calls for more speed in the fight against climate change, especially in financing

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, maintained this Friday that the international community is on the right path in the fight against climate change, but asked “Faster” and “do better”, especially in the debate on financing goals for after 2025 and technologies.

“Our joint efforts to limit climate change are bearing fruit. We have to go faster, we have to do better, but we are going in the right direction“, he noted during his speech at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue conference, which this Friday celebrates its second and last day in Berlin.

All countries have Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and 78 have presented strategies to achieve climate neutrality until 2050, he stressed.

“The mechanisms of the Paris Agreement are taking effect. The transformation towards neutrality is irreversible, among other things because it also makes sense from an economic point of viewScholz added.

All nations know, he stressed, that “there will be no return to the fossil era”.

“Instead, we must seize the opportunities of the future and that is exactly what we are doing around the world. This is demonstrated by the Dubai consensus to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency rates and abandon fossil fuels“said the chancellor.

Scholz stressed that the troika formed by the United Arab Emirates, host of the last UN Conference on Climate Change (COP), Azerbaijan, which will host COP-29 in November, and Brazil, which will do the same with the thirtieth edition in Belém , are now working on the next steps until the presentation of the new national plans.

The German president highlighted that this year in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, a new climate financing goal will be set for the period after 2025.

Unlike 15 years ago, the goal is no longer just to promote future technologies, but to finance the global dissemination of technologies that are already available and relatively cheap.

Scholz cited a study according to which US$2.4 billion will be needed annually by 2030 for the green transformation in developing and emerging countries.

Is about “a huge sum”, he stressed.

At this point he wanted to emphasize that “Public money alone, from a manageable group of countries, will not be enough for investments of this magnitude.”

Scholz argued that a debate focused solely on public funding commitments will fall far short.

“We need a new approach to global climate protection financing“, he claimed, and affirmed that investing in this objective is a common task for all, although rich countries will continue to support developing countries that are especially affected by climate change.

“Financing should be much more focused on enabling private investment in sustainable growth”, he proposed.

Scholz also considered that those countries that emit a lot of CO2 must pay more in the future for climate protection and adaptation to the climate impacts of other nations.

“Countries that contribute to large-scale emissions should also contribute to public climate finance if they are financially able to do so.“, he stated, without mentioning any country directly, although his words were interpreted in Berlin as an allusion to China.