Will the international community be able to make concrete steps towards global climate protection? This will be the decisive question when representatives from around 200 states meet from November 28 to December 9, 2011 in Durban, South Africa, at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Cop 17) to negotiate an agreement for the years following 2012. That is when the Kyoto Protocol expires, so far the most important instrument in international climate change policy.
The aim of the German Federal Government and the European Union in the ongoing international climate change policy process is the conclusion of a binding agreement on climate protection which limits the average rise in global temperature to two degrees centigrade. Germany itself has already decided to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent compared with the level of 1990. In Durban, Germany particularly wants the conference to clear up two still open issues: the unsolved political questions surrounding the future of the international climate change framework; and the implementation of the decisions made at the last climate change summit of 2010 in Cancun, Mexico. Although the states agreed on a package with key points for an agreement, the legal form remained open.
The Federal Minister for the Environment, Norbert Röttgen, made it clear that Cancun was a major initial step that now has to be further developed. However, he added that the reduction of greenhouse gases requires combined efforts. “This is why we have to insist that all of the largest emitters, including the USA and China, pledge to make ambitious reductions. But at the moment we still have a considerable way to go in this respect,” said Röttgen in the run-up to the summit in Durban.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle expressed his concern that climate change is confronting foreign policy with entirely new challenges which could lead to new conflicts. Based on a German initiative, the United Nations Security Council and the European Union highlighted the relevance of climate change to foreign and security policy in June 2011. In the Foreign Minister’s opinion, Germany will be assuming a responsible role at the conference in South Africa: “We play a pioneering role in climate protection, and we want to help make Durban a success.”
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