The climate policy of many countries is mediocre at best – despite the worsening climate crisis. This emerges from the annual climate protection index that the environmental and development organization Germanwatch published at the World Climate Conference in Dubai (COP28). The implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement is therefore becoming even more distant. Although Germany is in the top group in the index, quarrels within the traffic light coalition hindered a truly satisfactory climate balance, the report authors criticized.
Even previous pioneering countries like Denmark “seem to be further away from achieving the Paris climate goals today than in previous years,” warned co-author Niklas Höhne from the NewClimate Institute research institute. For the first time since the first climate protection index in 2005, not a single country received a grade of “good” in the “climate policy” sub-assessment.
Because, according to the study authors, none of the countries examined did enough to achieve a very good overall rating, the first three places in the climate protection index remain empty, as in previous years. Denmark once again occupies the top fourth place, with three oil states bringing up the rear: the COP host country United Arab Emirates, Iran and finally Saudi Arabia in last place.
For the climate protection index, 63 countries and the EU were examined, which together are responsible for more than 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It shows how far the global community is from the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible.
Compared to the previous year, Germany rose two places to 14th place, but still received only moderate marks in the four study categories of greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, energy use and climate policy.
The reasons for this lie “primarily in a transport policy that is too weak in terms of climate policy, the weakening of the Climate Protection Act and an ultimately watered-down Building Energy Act,” explained co-author Jan Burck from Germanwatch. Germany is not doing enough to achieve its self-imposed goal of becoming greenhouse gas neutral by 2045. Burck cites the “often contradictory climate policy ambitions within the traffic light coalition” as “an obstacle to a more ambitious climate policy”.
The report authors positively assess the federal government’s measures to expand renewable energies and bring forward the coal phase-out from 2038 to 2030. However, two German coal-fired power plants will be operated longer than planned and Germany is “still one of the nine countries worldwide that are responsible for 90 percent of the The authors of the report criticize that “coal production is responsible”.
Globally, the rising stars in the index include Estonia, the Philippines and the Netherlands. The Philippines achieved 6th place, particularly because of its low energy consumption and low emissions, while Estonia (5th) and the Netherlands (8th) scored particularly well in the areas of renewables and climate policy.
Brazil improved significantly from 38th to 23rd place under new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva thanks to a more ambitious climate policy and curbing rainforest deforestation.
The biggest decliners include Great Britain (from eleventh place to 20th) and Italy, which fell 15 places to 44th place. Poland, which is heavily dependent on coal, is once again at the bottom of the EU in 55th place.
From an international perspective, according to the study, a global boom in renewable energies, batteries, heat pumps and electromobility gives “reason for hope”. “Never before have so much capacity been installed worldwide as in 2022,” it says. This growth must now continue “exponentially in order to push back the fossil fuels that are still dominant.”
The report authors hope that the World Climate Conference in Dubai will provide a “boost in the necessary climate protection”. To do this, the negotiators from almost 200 countries would have to make “binding decisions” to triple global renewables capacities, double energy efficiency and halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, particularly by reducing the use of fossil energy sources such as oil and coal.
A commitment to the global phase-out of fossil fuels is a central point of contention that will determine the second week of negotiations in Dubai, which began on Friday. The 28th World Climate Conference is officially scheduled to end on December 12th, but an overrun like in previous years cannot be ruled out.
