Climate Change
Year after year the average global temperature reaches new record levels and CO2 emissions worldwide are higher than ever. The necessary 1.5 degree limit set in Paris can only be adhered to when the international community finally takes the Paris climate agreement seriously.
Mitigating the Climate Crisis
Under the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community has agreed upon limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels and, if possible, of not exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. Even with this rise in temperatures, however, climate change will have severe and almost uncontrollable effects. Yet the world community is on the way to far overstepping even this threshold – with unforeseeable consequences for life on Earth.
The Catastrophic Scenario of Five Degrees More
Although the Paris Agreement is binding under international law, the efforts to protect the climate are left to the states themselves as voluntary measures. Unfortunately, the current commitments by state signatories are only sufficient to limit global warming to some three degrees Celsius. If not all states keep their promises made in Paris, the Earth will even head for a global temperature rise of up to five degrees by the end of the century. A catastrophic scenario made all the more likely by the announcement of the United States to leave the Paris Agreement in 2020. The higher the temperature rises, the more devastating the effects of climate change will be and the more difficult it will be to mitigate.
Serious Climate Policy for the 1.5 Degree Limit
That is why all states must finally lay down binding rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This includes climate protection measures as well as agreements on adaptation to climate change and their financing. These rules make the agreement become an effective convention. The Paris Protocol is intended to oblige states to report transparently and close loopholes for obstructionists and truants. Since the rich countries in particular are contributing too little to climate protection, it is important to commit them in forthcoming negotiations to significantly larger contributions. This will also strengthen the confidence of the poorest countries in the process of climate negotiations.
What Brot für die Welt Does
The central concern of our climate policy work is to mitigate climate change and its consequences for humans and nature. We focus on the situation of the poor and particularly vulnerable population. This is why we support and demand:
- low-carbon development, climate and resource protection;
- adaptation to climate change;
- human rights-based responses to climate-related risks and loss and damage.
We support, for example, projects which strengthen the resilience of the affected in the face of extreme weather. For instance, small farmers can learn how to adapt their cultivation methods and which crops are more robust and better able to withstand drought.
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Analyse 102: Climate change, Debt and COVID-19
Analysing the Triple Crisis with a New Climate Disaster and Debt Risk Indicator and Building Forward for a Resilient Recovery, Based on Climate Justice.
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Achieving 100 % Renewable Energy for all
Mitigating the worst impacts of climate change will require the large-scale, rapid deployment of Renewable Energy (RE) and fossil fuels to be declared an obsolete technology by 2050. Therefore we set up projects in Tanzania, Bangladesh and Costa Rica to develop integrated 100 % RE roadmaps.
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Ambition, Participation and Effectiveness
Utilising the NDC Partnership as a Catalyst for NDC Implementation in Developing Countries
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Analysis 91: Climate Finance for Addressing Loss and Damage
The planet is burning. Devastating droughts, hurricanes, wildfires and floods, dying corrals, melting glaciers, and thawing of permafrost provide overwhelming evidence that dangerous climate change is happening ‒ and it is hitting faster and harder than ever predicted by scientific researchers. This report introduces the climate justice criteria of mutuality, solidarity, accountability, and the transversal principle of transparency of finance for assessing financial sources to address loss and damage. It systematically reveals the distinct roles of these criteria, and the underlying pro-poor principles as well as humanitarian, human rights, gender equality, and polluter pays principles, in finding adequate solutions. It concludes with a number of recommendations. [1.5 MB]
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Analysis 87: Climate Risk Financing
This paper presents and discusses new and established climate risk financing instruments and approaches and how they could better contribute to closing the protection gap in vulnerable countries. It provides information and new ideas to civil society organizations and policymakers who are engaged in the broader debate on finding financing solutions to compensate climate-induced loss and damage following the principles of equity and climate justice. A further aim is to address knowledge gaps and misconceptions about what can be expected and what cannot be expected from risk financing instruments. It is an analytical paper, presenting fact-findings and some recommendations derived fromresearch, but it is not a policy paper. [1.7 MB]
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Analysis 86: Limiting Global Warming to 1.5°C
The publication discusses the various vulnerability aspects of climate change and the significant differences between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming, and the resultant impacts on sustainable development as elaborated in the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The conclusion is that every tenth of a degree matters. [3.7 MB]
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