Röttgen: Responsible climate policy is based on avoidance and adaptation
Today, the Federal Cabinet adopted the Adaptation Action Plan to support the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change. "Responsible climate policy is based on two pillars: avoidance and adaptation. For the imminent - or already apparent - changes to our climate system will have social, ecological and economic consequences for Germany too. Therefore, besides making efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, we must also work on adaptation to climate change," said Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen.
The Adaptation Action Plan comprises activities in four areas. The area on communicating knowledge, informing and enabling draws together the German government's initiatives on communicating information, expanding research and information infrastructures and supporting dialogue, participation and networking. The area focusing on the frameworks set by the Federation describes projects in which the German government offers or reviews incentives and bases for adaptation in the legal and technical fields, and in its support policy. For instance, introducing a planning principle for climate-friendly urban development which enables local authorities to take account of the impacts of climate change in construction and land use planning. Another example is including climate change aspects in technical rules on installation safety in the context of natural hazard management.
The area on activities under direct responsibility of the Federation highlights how the Federation can take climate change into consideration as an owner of land, buildings, and infrastructures, or as a client in construction projects. Activities include strengthening the resistance of buildings and transport infrastructures to extreme events, or reshaping the federal forests to achieve more stable mixed forests with a richer structure. The final area addresses international responsibility and describes Germany's role in elaborating and implementing the decisions of the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun (Mexico), considers Germany's work in development cooperation through the International Climate Initiative and in research cooperation, and looks at other international activities of the federal ministries relating adaptation to climate change. Links to activities at EU level are also highlighted.
Prior to adopting this Action Plan, the German government had conducted a broad dialogue in a number of events and involving both the federal Länder and experts in the field. The Action Plan underpins the objectives of the German Adaptation Strategy with concrete activities at federal level for the coming years, and highlights links with other national strategy processes, such as the high-tech strategy 2020, the National Biodiversity Strategy and the National Forest Strategy. The activities of the Federation must be supplemented with measures at Länder and local authority level.
At the end of 2014, the Federal government plans to present a review evaluating the German Adaptation Strategy and the Action Plan which will include proposals for updating and further developing them.