Climate & Environment
Changes in the atmosphere and climate system are among the greatest environmental and political challenges of the 21st century. Climate change, which has largely been caused by human activity, is the global challenge. For many years now, Germany has been making efforts to avoid greenhouse gas emissions by way of anticipatory national climate change policies and by promoting renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. In the international arena, Germany is a forerunner in climate and energy policies and seeks to achieve ambitious emission-reduction goals.
Alongside the destruction of habitats, the economic exploitation of animals and plants is one of the greatest dangers facing the animal and plant worlds. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, in short the Washington Convention, is a legally binding international agreement dating from 1973 to protect endangered species of animals and plants. It is also known internationally as CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
CITES - Protection of species of plants and animals from extinction
The secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will be located in Bonn. Representatives from almost 100 countries made the decision late on 19 April in Panama City during the second IPBES plenary session.
Bonn will become the host city for the IPBES Secretariat
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.
Climate protection
As the 21st century progresses the consequences of global climate change will have a major impact on people all around the world. The German government is keen to take international climate diplomacy forward.
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It is a major element in climate and environmental protection, a vital habitat, an important economic factor and a popular place for recreation: the forest is an indispensible ecosystem on our planet – and in 2011 it is the focus of a special International Year of Forests, called into being by the United Nations (UN). The year is aiming to raise people’s awareness about the significance of forests, their sustainable cultivation and their role in fighting poverty.
International Year of Forests
Developing cycle paths, improving public transport, putting more electric vehicles on the roads, modernizing houses, designating areas for new biotopes and using waste for energy production are just some of the environmentally friendly ideas with which Hamburg aims to make a mark as European Green Capital in 2011. Germany’s second largest city, which has 1.7 million inhabitants, was awarded the honour by the European Commission and beat 35 European competitors in the process. Hamburg is now the second city – after the Swedish capital Stockholm – to receive this title for an exemplary commitment to environmental protection and nature conservation.
Hamburg: Green Role Model for Europe
Expectations are high in the run up to the 16th UN Climate Change Conference (COP16) in Cancún, Mexico at the end of this month. At the international summit from November 29 to December 10, Germany and countries from around the globe will be negotiating on a new climate protection agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
16th UN Climate Change Conference
The "Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2010" conference entitled „THE HEAT IS ON – Climate Change and the Media"will bring together in Bonn from 21. -23. June media users and producers, scientists, peace keeping and conflict prevention specialists, energy industry experts, policy makers as well as representatives from international, grassroots and non-governmental organizations to discuss how to harmonize individual and collective action in order to steer the world away from a foreboding future and instead toward genuine sustainability.
DW Global Media Forum 2010
With the international community having failed to reach agreement on a binding global climate accord at the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, expectations for a new post-2012 climate regime are now pinned on the next UN climate conference to be held in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year
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In the fictitious sports club WASH United, football stars such as Bastian Schweinsteiger, Arjen Robben and Didier Drogba campaign to implement the human right to clean drinking water and sanitation. M...
WASH United
Germany’s new face with the EU
Germany’s new EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger expressed a clear commitment to the expansion of renewable energies on Wednesday February 10, when he took up his new post in Brussels. On Tuesday February 9, Mr Oettinger, who now heads the department of energy, was elected with a large majority by the European Parliament together with 25 other EU Commissioners, each from a different member state. The new European Commission under its President José Manuel Barroso is the first to take up its mandate after the EU reform Treaty of Lisbon came into effect on December 1, 2009.
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The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. Reason enough for the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) as official UN partner to devote this year – the 111th anniversary of its founding – to the dramatic decline in biodiversity. Globally, 16,000 species are regarded as threatened with extinction, that’s around a quarter of all mammals, a third of all amphibians and twelve per cent of birds.
NABU
When the representatives from over 190 countries meet in December 2009 in Copenhagen at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), they will be focusing on the future of our planet. In the Danish capital the delegates will negotiate a new, binding international agreement on climate protection designed to succeed the present Kyoto Protocol in 2013. Many of the data used by the experts come from Bonn.
Ways out of the climate crisis
