Heatwaves and droughts are becoming more frequent, as are heavy rains, floods and storms. At the now traditional Petersberg climate dialogue in Berlin, named after the first dialogue in 2010 at the federal government’s guest house in Petersberg near Bonn, ministers and representatives from 40 countries will discuss this Monday and Tuesday how to move forward internationally in climate protection, according to Handelsblatt.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Solz (SPD) assured over the weekend that the climate crisis will not be forgotten. “Our aim is to be one of the first countries to be CO2 neutral and at the same time globally competitive and successful as an economic nation, as an industrial nation,” he said on the chancellor’s weekly podcast. “By 2045 we want to achieve this.”
So far, developing countries have suffered the most from extreme weather conditions. But the high temperatures are increasingly affecting industrialized countries too – damages have long been in the billions. An extreme heat wave is affecting people in southern Europe today, with forest fires raging in Portugal, Spain and France. On Saturday, Spain alone reported 360 heat-related deaths. The following overview shows how Germany is affected by climate change:
1. Drought and heat
Germany is being threatened next week by an unusually strong heat wave with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in some places. Brandenburg and Lower Saxony sound the alarm. “What we are experiencing now gives only a small foretaste of the challenges we will have to face as a result of climate change,” Lower Saxony Environment Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) told Handelsblatt. “We therefore need a fundamental rethinking of how we deal with the precious resource of water in the future.”
Schmitt calls for requiring cities and municipalities to implement heavy rainfall risk management. In the future, municipalities will have to draw up risk and vulnerability maps. The local flood risk by road needs to be determined so that the effects of flash floods can be digitally simulated.
DWA President Mr. Paetzel is also calling on cities and municipalities to act. “The so-called principle of the sponge city must become the guiding principle for urban planning,” he says. “Cities must be able to store more water in the future – like a sponge.” This includes reducing the sealing of inner cities and creating infiltration areas, he adds.
The basic idea is to retain rainwater in as many areas as possible and gradually channel it into the ground, the drainage system or water receivers. These so-called green oases not only help keep cities cool in hot weather, but also help to some extent against heavy rainfall.
In March, the Federal Ministry for the Environment launched a package of immediate climate change adaptation measures for municipalities. The action document envisages the significant expansion of advisory services and the dissemination of knowledge on climate protection in Germany.
Also, against the backdrop of lessons learned from the flood disaster, department head Steffi Lemke’s (Greens) ministry wants to allocate an additional €60 million by 2026 to equip cities and municipalities for future extreme weather events.
3. Inland navigation
Inland waterways play an important role in Germany in supplying relevant goods that can only be transported to a limited extent by other means. For chemical company BASF, 2018 still brings back bad memories. At the time, the prolonged low water level prevented the navigation of the Rhine, production was limited to the company’s factory in Ludwigshafen, and the economic loss ran into the millions.
Meanwhile, BASF has implemented a number of measures to make the Ludwigshafen site more resilient to prolonged low-water events and increase production supply security. Among other things, more ships suitable for low water have been chartered. In addition, a vessel “that can reliably transport significant quantities even at the lowest levels of the Rhine” is being built, BASF told Handelsblatt.
In addition, the company implemented a digital early warning system for low water levels with a warning time of up to six weeks in cooperation with the Federal Institute of Hydrology.
4. Harvests
Due to heat and drought, German farmers are again expecting lower grain harvests: For this summer, the association currently expects a total of only 41.2 million tonnes. This will still be less than last year’s 42.3 million tonnes and well below the average of 44.2 million tonnes for the years 2015 to 2020, says Joachim Rukwied, president of the German Farmers’ Union (DBV).
According to him, water reserves in the ground are still very low. And it’s not just about cereals: adequate rainfall is also important for the maize, potato and sugar beet harvests in the coming weeks.
The situation for cereals, however, differs significantly from region to region: “Regions in the east, northern Bavaria and central Germany are particularly affected by drought and heat,” DBV general secretary Bernhard Krüsken told Handelsblatt. Traditionally, the situation is better on the coasts and in the foothills of the Alps.
Some farmers in Brandenburg, for example, have already started irrigating their fields. However, this increases the cost of water and diesel for the pumps. Therefore, only crops such as potatoes, wheat, maize and soybeans are irrigated where it is worthwhile.
In addition, there have been fertilizer supply problems since the beginning of the year, exacerbated by the war, says the DBV vice president. “The central problem, however, is the expensive natural gas, which is used to make fertilizers in Europe. If the supply of natural gas is interrupted, there will also be a problem with availability here. Then there may also be large losses in agricultural yields. “, Krüsken stated.
As recently as 2018, then-federal agriculture minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) described crop damage caused by the drought as an event of “national proportions” – and promised federal drought aid for the first time since 2003. , a total of nearly €292 million was paid to farmers whose livelihoods were threatened by the drought. About 7,000 farms, mainly in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony, received an average of 43,800 euros.
Source: Capital
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