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string(8139) "A true transition needs “a good story”, said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber at the 21st Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) in Berlin. One of the most internationally renowned climate scientists, Schellnhuber founded the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), where he has been Director Emeritus since 2018.
“The biggest elephant in the climate room is building”, he explained, having joined forces with other experts to set up Bauhaus Earth to change this. Some 40 percent of greenhouse gases emitted globally originate from the construction and operation of buildings and infrastructure. And not only that: half of all waste produced in western industrialised countries comes from building and demolition. In Germany alone, some 45 hectares a day of near-natural landscape is lost to housing developments and transport infrastructure. And yet this giant among climate sins went for a long time unrecognised.
“We should have changed direction long ago”, said Schellnhuber. In 2019 the Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of mass, with one million tonnes of ice melting every minute. Humanity rushed towards the planks laid down by the Paris Agreement in 2015. But the average temperature of the Earth’s surface is already 1.25 degrees above its pre-industrial level. “We are heading towards 3, 4, 5 degrees”, warned the climate scientist. “That would be a different world, one in which civilisation could not survive.” Global warming, he continued, “must be halted not much above two degrees – and then we have to work backwards”.
Now more than ever
But aren’t there other priorities for now? The climate crisis is not the only crisis to contend with. 2019 introduced us to coronavirus and on 24 February this year came Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine on top. People are worried about heating their homes, putting food on the table and how they will get to work. Germany is facing existential problems – as is the rest of the world. But that’s no reason to put the socioecological restructuring on hold. Quite the contrary. The participants, including many members of the government, were agreed. It’s worth following the debate. It reveals a lot about how seriously sustainability should be taken in the crisis and which partners can help drive it at home and abroad.
“Now more than ever”, explained Sarah Ryglewski, who as Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery is responsible for Federal-State relations and sustainability policy. She had stepped in at short notice to replace Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was due to attend the conference as keynote speaker but had come down with Covid. “We all realise how dependent we are on fossil fuels”, said Ryglewski. At the same time the ecological crises are escalating: devastating floods in Pakistan, drought in the Horn of Africa, not to mention the many forest fires in Europe. Germany, she continued, wants to be the first major industrialised nation to reach climate neutrality by 2045. The target share of renewable energies making up gross electricity consumption is at least 80 percent by 2030, which is why infrastructure planning and approvals are now also being fast-tracked. And the federal administration itself plans to be climate-neutral by 2030. Far from being an obstacle, the transition to sustainability is an economic opportunity. “If we miss it, we’ll be left behind”, insisted the Minister of State. And Germany won’t swerve its international obligations either.
Bonfire of enthusiasm for sustainability
Rebuilding Germany and the world sustainably – that’s what many people want. Of course there are also voices that say “Crisis management first – transition, change, climate neutrality later”. We need to “meet them head-on”, said RNE Chairman Werner Schnappauf, and instead ignite “a bonfire of enthusiasm throughout the country”. Schnappauf called on people to start “sustainability projects everywhere: we now need the innovative capacity of business and a new cooperation between society, politics and the economy”. This is the duty of each and every one of us.
For this very reason, Minister of State Sarah Ryglewski and Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia and current Chair of the Conference of Minister-Presidents Hendrik Wüst launched the Joint Action for Sustainable Development at the annual conference. With the motto “All together now”, the joint federal and Länder initiative is coordinated by the RNE. Organisations can sign up on an online platform and register their sustainability activities and points of contact. The aim, explained Lisi Maier, RNE member and Director of the Federal Foundation for Gender Equality, is to bring together actors who have not worked together before and gather ideas.
Wood instead of concrete
This is where, for example, the idea of climate scientist Schellnhuber comes in, which gives us a perspective to focus on in uncertain times. Like the Bauhaus movement of the 20th century, he wants to transform our built-up environment sustainably. So far, it’s “dysfunctionally ugly”, he says: “We are building in the wrong way, where the human spirit cannot feel at ease”. His alternative model is to “Reforest the planet, retimber the city”. Woodland around the world is being reforested to suit the climate; likewise, architecture is changing over from reinforced concrete and brick to organic materials. Schellnhuber refers to the system of a “forest-building pump”, which can even lower the CO2 content of the atmosphere, because trees absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide as they grow.
Politics is starting to get to grips with this. In 2020, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, launched the New European Bauhaus initiative, an idea being further developed by Ruth Reichstein in the Commission’s internal think tank I.D.E.A. Many voices are calling for “technological neutrality, treating everything as of equal value”, but that hasn’t been applied to wood and clay for a long time, she pointed out at the annual conference. Concrete has been the material of choice up to now. According to Cansel Kiziltepe, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building, her department is currently working on a timber construction strategy together with the Ministry of Agriculture.
The building transition will not be a walk in the park. There is “enormous demand for affordable housing”, said Martin Horn, mayor of the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. And local governments with ambitious plans for socioecological building need support in the form of federal and state funding. Theresa Keilhacker, president of the Chamber of Architects Berlin, sees great potential in maintaining existing buildings. This had “been lost sight of in recent years”. Only recently, the Association of German Architects wrote an open letter (in German) to federal building minister Klara Geywitz demanding a moratorium on demolition.
In the Global North the ecological renovation of old buildings should take centre stage, along with the addition of storeys, urged Schellnhuber. In the Global South, however, with its fast-growing population, new housing needs to be built. How to build more sustainably – this question needs to be given priority in the coming months, not least through the Joint Action for Sustainable Development. Schellnhuber promised: “We are on the threshold of a new architectural era, where we will build sustainably, for all – and we will do it in style.”"
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string(8233) "“Who has good ideas and solutions and what can everyone else learn and take away from them?” This question, posed by Sarah Ryglewski at the 21st Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE), perfectly encapsulated the motivation behind the Joint Action for Sustainable Development. The Minister of State for Federal-State Relations had stepped in at short notice for Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had come down with Covid, to officially launch this joint federal and Länder initiative. Set up by the RNE, the new platform project aims to “bring together all sustainability activities nationwide, from local initiatives to business and science all the way through to local authorities”, announced Ryglewski.
Together with Hendrik Wüst, Minister-President of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and current Chair of the Conference of Minister-Presidents, Ryglewski symbolically plugged in the web platform that underpins the Joint Action for Sustainable Development. The platform is intended to showcase existing sustainability activities, link up organisations and spark new activities, ultimately helping to achieve the UN’s 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Action weeks, community targets, awards, open social innovation processes and networking events are just some of the tools that will be used to get things moving. Hendrik Wüst offered to organise a networking event for the Joint Action in his state in 2023.
A central role for local governments
Sustainability is the right principle to guide us into a sound future, said RNE Chairman Werner Schnappauf at the annual conference. There is currently more momentum than ever before, in society but also in business. Government policy is setting the course and opening the doors for sustainable development: “But we all need to make our own way through these doors: citizens, local governments, businesses.” Because the success of the transition will be determined locally on the ground, where the citizens actually live; and this is precisely where the Joint Action for Sustainable Development comes into play.
Sarah Ryglewski, too, highlighted the important role of local governments for a sustainable transition as “sustainability experts all over the country”. Shortly before, Markus Lewe, mayor of the city of Münster and President of the Association of German Cities, had said on the same stage: “The city of the future will be a sustainable one – or it will no longer exist.” That makes it right and proper, continued Ryglewski, that the Joint Action’s first main focus areas will be one that is so important to local governments, namely building and housing: “Many local governments are already thinking broadly on this topic and we must ensure that these ideas filter through to the legislation”, she emphasised. With this in mind, an open social innovation process on the area of transformation ‘Sustainable building and housing’ is planned for the coming year in conjunction with the Federal Ministry for Building and under the umbrella of the Joint Action for Sustainable Development. The concept centres around a 48-hour hackathon to develop new ideas, the most promising of which will then be turned into projects.
A learning platform
“This platform won’t stay like this”, predicted Lisi Maier, Director of the Federal Foundation for Gender Equality and RNE member. Rather, it is a learning platform which relies on everyone getting involved. In the subsequent panel discussion, representatives of major associations and foundations spoke about how these bodies can and must contribute to the Joint Action for Sustainable Development.
Thomas Weikert, President of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB), for instance, sees it as a great opportunity to put concrete proposals where possible to the 9,000 sports clubs with 25 million members under the DOSB’s umbrella. For example, turning down floodlights and adjusting training times to save energy. This would see these things actually done. Often it just takes a nudge – there’s no shortage of will.
Managing Director of Stiftung KlimaWirtschaft Sabine Nallinger stressed that time is running out for a sustainable transition: “It’s time to turbocharge sociopolitical processes, but also the economy.” The economy is on the brink of a revolution. To reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2030 we need new processes and new partnerships: “And because we need to think so big, we’re definitely going to need networks.”
Constantin Terton, head of business, energy and environment at the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), spoke on behalf of trade and craft enterprises. These are currently at a point where we need to make sure they don’t sustain lasting damage from the present crises. It is a matter of stabilising the small businesses in particular and at the same time making sure they can operate as implementers of sustainability and the energy transition. One of Terton’s great hopes for the web platform, he said, was that it would inspire young people, but also career changers, to take up a trade. “Ultimately, it’s about making something with your hands”, said the ZDH representative. “How do we manage to assemble the photovoltaics, install the heat pumps, co-generate heat and power? You can only do that with people.”
The Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany recently determined its own climate protection guidelines: “We want to become 90 percent climate-neutral by 2035 and 100 percent by 2045”, said Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany Kristina Kühnbaum-Schmidt. “We don’t tend to have such a problem recognising what we could and should do”, she explained, “but we have a problem putting it into practice”. In the afternoon, the topic forums of the annual conference then focussed on how, specifically, the Joint Action for Sustainable Development can be implemented.
Young perspectives and expertise
One of the forums was organised by the representatives of the Youth Conference on Sustainability Policy, which had been held in the run-up, around the topics of creating climate- and eco-friendly structures, ensuring mobility and coming together, making sustainability fair, and education for sustainable development. “Young people are affected by the climate crisis like no generation ever before”, explained the President of the German Federal Youth Council Wendelin Haag. Furthermore, how much knowledge young people can bring to the table has so far been underestimated, pointed out Gülistan Bayan of the Federation of Alevi Youth in Germany (BDAJ). According to Fabian Abel of the German Catholic Youth Federation, sustainability is a major topic across all youth organisations, but it’s the “how” that divides opinion. Young people are way more multifaceted than they are portrayed in the media; that was plain to see at the Youth Conference on Sustainability Policy. What unites them is their collective call to governments to step up the sustainable transition as a matter of urgency. In this spirit, the representatives of the Federal Youth Council took the opportunity to hand over the results of the Youth Conference to the Minister of State.
In her speech, Minister of State Sarah Ryglewski had recalled a statement from the Brundtland Commission that shapes the concept of sustainability to this day: “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” There’s no time left to lose on this, she warned: “As we know, the best time to tackle a problem was yesterday.” But the good thing is: “The next best is today, and that’s now.”
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Where do things stand with the United Nations’ global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the face of numerous global crises, from the war in Ukraine to the impacts of the climate crisis? This question was discussed by a high-level panel at the Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE).
Back in July, at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York, UN Secretary-General António Guterres had already pulled no punches in his analysis: the world is in a desperate situation, and the SDGs are no exception, he lamented. But in his video message he gave the public hope: “We can still turn the tide if we all stand together – governments, civil society and the private sector.” But this mission needs, more than ever, the support of countries like Germany.
Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul: We must prevent new blocs from forming
Already last year Guterres himself launched various reforms towards inclusive and networked multilateralism, summarised in “Our Common Agenda”, including proposing a UN Summit of the Future. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, former German Minister for Development and member of the RNE, acknowledged Guterres’s proposal to establish a regular joint summit of the G20 and ECOSOC (UN Economic and Social Council) states together with international financial institutions. This could act as a kind of global sustainability council, she explained, which would serve as a compass for the further development of the SDGs.
“The multilateral system is not suited to resolving the combined crises we are facing”, said Wieczorek-Zeul. She went on to accuse the industrialised countries, in particular the G7 states and the EU, of hypocrisy for failing to provide sufficient funding to combat climate change and the pandemic. “We have to stand by our commitments”, insisted Wieczorek-Zeul. The German budget plan for 2023 would not be enough to expedite progress on the SDGs. Wieczorek-Zeul was applauded for her call to defend democracy, rule-based multilateralism and international law against their critics – but at the same time do everything we can to avoid new blocs forming in the international community. “I know this happens, but we must prevent it”, she said.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Think bigger and boldly lead the way
Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia until 2018, also recounted in a video message where the multilateral system has done too little for people and the planet in recent times: on climate action, global healthcare, food security, handling forced migration and upholding human rights and democracy.
Sirleaf is also Co-Chair of the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, which was founded by Guterres to put the ideas of the Common Agenda into practice. “Be bold, think bigger, we cannot solve the challenges of our time half-heartedly”, she urged, calling on Europe and Africa to work together on transformative change – and create multilateral institutions in which the Global South plays a genuine role in decision-making processes.
Svenja Schulze: Structural answers to ongoing crises
Svenja Schulze, current German Minister for Development, gave four answers to the ongoing crises. Firstly: 828 million people around the world are starving – that’s considerably more than before the pandemic. Against this backdrop, the G7 in partnership with the World Bank set up the Global Alliance for Food Security with the aim of establishing not only acute aid but also structural change, such as more resilient agrarian systems. Secondly, the impacts of the pandemic are still very much being felt, especially in the Global South. Efforts are therefore being concentrated on ensuring that vaccines are available – and also produced – worldwide. Healthcare systems, too, must become more resilient.
Thirdly, Schulze continued, people all over the world must play a part in the war on climate change. Germany, therefore, is working to ensure a just transition. Fourthly: We need gender equity in order to achieve these goals. “In most countries around the world women do not have the same rights as men”, explained Schulze. Yet research shows that societies where woman have equal rights are also more sustainable. As such, Germany fosters a feminist development and foreign policy.
Jennifer Morgan: Partnerships as diverse as possible
Former head of Greenpeace and since March 2022 Special Envoy for International Climate Action in the German Foreign Ministry, Jennifer Morgan, emphasised: “If the SDGs are not addressed, the climate crisis cannot be resolved either”, the necessary foundation for this being a global, ecological, social and market-based economic system. “Germany has a big responsibility”, she explained: “We are living at a disruptive moment.” At the next UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt in November, Morgan will lead the negotiations for compensation for future meteorological disasters as a facilitator together with the Chilean ministry for the environment. The debate around “loss and damage”, as the experts call it, has already caused major conflict at previous climate conferences in response to the industrialised countries refusing the key demands of the poorer nations. And it is not getting any easier since a member of the UN Security Council, Russia, has brutally violated international law. What the future holds for the international community, which thus far has followed the path of multilateralism, is anyone’s guess. But Morgan remained positive, pointing out there are “new opportunities to work together with allies”.
Emmanuel Ametepey: Africa is full of innovations
The great potential that partnerships can hold was highlighted by Emmanuel Ametepey, Director of the African Youth SDGs Summit – a forum set up in 2017 that now reaches more than 100,000 young people in Africa. “Africa is the continent of youth, a continent full of brilliant ideas, with enormous creativity and innovation. The question is: How can we support that?”, he asked. June 2023 will see the fifth African Youth SDGs Summit in the Zambian capital Lusaka. “I would like to issue an invitation to the young people of Europe: Come to us. Let us develop ideas and solutions together as to how we can put the SDGs into action”, said Ametepey. Last year as part of the Common Agenda, Guterres founded the UN Youth Office, in which Ametepey sees a great opportunity to coordinate, finance and boost the engagement of young people around the world. He also encouraged young people to get much more involved in national and international SDG policy processes.
The conference was brought to a close by Imme Scholz, Deputy Chairwoman of the RNE, who looked ahead to the next Global Sustainable Development Report 2023, which she will co-edit: “It is important to us that there is a better understanding of what transformation means. If something new is to emerge, for example a renewable energy system, then not only will the new system proliferate, but there will also be things we have to leave behind. That is a painful process, which goes hand in hand with much resistance – we need to work proactively with that situation. Moreover, the transition is taking place at different speeds, which makes it all the more important that the federal government and the new German Sustainable Development Strategy will act across policy fields and within the six main areas of transformation.”
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string(34) "In times of multiple global crises"
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string(162) "War, hunger, pandemic – why we need global sustainability goals now more than ever and what needs to change if we are to achieve them despite the many setbacks."
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string(8139) "A true transition needs “a good story”, said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber at the 21st Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) in Berlin. One of the most internationally renowned climate scientists, Schellnhuber founded the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), where he has been Director Emeritus since 2018.
“The biggest elephant in the climate room is building”, he explained, having joined forces with other experts to set up Bauhaus Earth to change this. Some 40 percent of greenhouse gases emitted globally originate from the construction and operation of buildings and infrastructure. And not only that: half of all waste produced in western industrialised countries comes from building and demolition. In Germany alone, some 45 hectares a day of near-natural landscape is lost to housing developments and transport infrastructure. And yet this giant among climate sins went for a long time unrecognised.
“We should have changed direction long ago”, said Schellnhuber. In 2019 the Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of mass, with one million tonnes of ice melting every minute. Humanity rushed towards the planks laid down by the Paris Agreement in 2015. But the average temperature of the Earth’s surface is already 1.25 degrees above its pre-industrial level. “We are heading towards 3, 4, 5 degrees”, warned the climate scientist. “That would be a different world, one in which civilisation could not survive.” Global warming, he continued, “must be halted not much above two degrees – and then we have to work backwards”.
Now more than ever
But aren’t there other priorities for now? The climate crisis is not the only crisis to contend with. 2019 introduced us to coronavirus and on 24 February this year came Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine on top. People are worried about heating their homes, putting food on the table and how they will get to work. Germany is facing existential problems – as is the rest of the world. But that’s no reason to put the socioecological restructuring on hold. Quite the contrary. The participants, including many members of the government, were agreed. It’s worth following the debate. It reveals a lot about how seriously sustainability should be taken in the crisis and which partners can help drive it at home and abroad.
“Now more than ever”, explained Sarah Ryglewski, who as Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery is responsible for Federal-State relations and sustainability policy. She had stepped in at short notice to replace Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was due to attend the conference as keynote speaker but had come down with Covid. “We all realise how dependent we are on fossil fuels”, said Ryglewski. At the same time the ecological crises are escalating: devastating floods in Pakistan, drought in the Horn of Africa, not to mention the many forest fires in Europe. Germany, she continued, wants to be the first major industrialised nation to reach climate neutrality by 2045. The target share of renewable energies making up gross electricity consumption is at least 80 percent by 2030, which is why infrastructure planning and approvals are now also being fast-tracked. And the federal administration itself plans to be climate-neutral by 2030. Far from being an obstacle, the transition to sustainability is an economic opportunity. “If we miss it, we’ll be left behind”, insisted the Minister of State. And Germany won’t swerve its international obligations either.
Bonfire of enthusiasm for sustainability
Rebuilding Germany and the world sustainably – that’s what many people want. Of course there are also voices that say “Crisis management first – transition, change, climate neutrality later”. We need to “meet them head-on”, said RNE Chairman Werner Schnappauf, and instead ignite “a bonfire of enthusiasm throughout the country”. Schnappauf called on people to start “sustainability projects everywhere: we now need the innovative capacity of business and a new cooperation between society, politics and the economy”. This is the duty of each and every one of us.
For this very reason, Minister of State Sarah Ryglewski and Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia and current Chair of the Conference of Minister-Presidents Hendrik Wüst launched the Joint Action for Sustainable Development at the annual conference. With the motto “All together now”, the joint federal and Länder initiative is coordinated by the RNE. Organisations can sign up on an online platform and register their sustainability activities and points of contact. The aim, explained Lisi Maier, RNE member and Director of the Federal Foundation for Gender Equality, is to bring together actors who have not worked together before and gather ideas.
Wood instead of concrete
This is where, for example, the idea of climate scientist Schellnhuber comes in, which gives us a perspective to focus on in uncertain times. Like the Bauhaus movement of the 20th century, he wants to transform our built-up environment sustainably. So far, it’s “dysfunctionally ugly”, he says: “We are building in the wrong way, where the human spirit cannot feel at ease”. His alternative model is to “Reforest the planet, retimber the city”. Woodland around the world is being reforested to suit the climate; likewise, architecture is changing over from reinforced concrete and brick to organic materials. Schellnhuber refers to the system of a “forest-building pump”, which can even lower the CO2 content of the atmosphere, because trees absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide as they grow.
Politics is starting to get to grips with this. In 2020, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, launched the New European Bauhaus initiative, an idea being further developed by Ruth Reichstein in the Commission’s internal think tank I.D.E.A. Many voices are calling for “technological neutrality, treating everything as of equal value”, but that hasn’t been applied to wood and clay for a long time, she pointed out at the annual conference. Concrete has been the material of choice up to now. According to Cansel Kiziltepe, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building, her department is currently working on a timber construction strategy together with the Ministry of Agriculture.
The building transition will not be a walk in the park. There is “enormous demand for affordable housing”, said Martin Horn, mayor of the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. And local governments with ambitious plans for socioecological building need support in the form of federal and state funding. Theresa Keilhacker, president of the Chamber of Architects Berlin, sees great potential in maintaining existing buildings. This had “been lost sight of in recent years”. Only recently, the Association of German Architects wrote an open letter (in German) to federal building minister Klara Geywitz demanding a moratorium on demolition.
In the Global North the ecological renovation of old buildings should take centre stage, along with the addition of storeys, urged Schellnhuber. In the Global South, however, with its fast-growing population, new housing needs to be built. How to build more sustainably – this question needs to be given priority in the coming months, not least through the Joint Action for Sustainable Development. Schellnhuber promised: “We are on the threshold of a new architectural era, where we will build sustainably, for all – and we will do it in style.”"
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