From the point of view of the head of the Bosch technology group, the climate crisis can no longer be solved in this generation. “We shouldn’t delude ourselves. If we believe that all problems will be solved by 2050 if we achieve the emission targets that have now been set, then we’re wrong,” said Stefan Hartung of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. Even if Europe were emission-free by then, all the CO2 that has been emitted over the last hundred years will still be in the atmosphere. “Then we still have the task of extracting the CO2 from the atmosphere again.”
“As the current generation, we are in a position to take the first steps. The next generation will take another step and the next generation will perhaps finally deal with the CO2 issue,” Hartung continued. The entire transformation is a bet on the future – “and we have to approach it with optimism”. Society will also not be able to afford to do without a potentially CO2-neutral technology. Bosch is the world’s largest automotive supplier and is working not only on battery-electric drives but also on hydrogen fuel cells.
“We have not yet invented some technologies that we as humanity probably urgently need,” Hartung continued. But that’s not a bad thing: “100 years ago there weren’t many technologies that we use today. So I’m actually quite optimistic about that. So far there have always been people – not uncommon in our company and many other companies – who had brilliant ideas. And that’s what I’m going to build on over the next few years.”
