Former Environment Minister Peter Altmaier criticizes the UN Climate Fund. Climate gluer Carla Hinrichs says: “We are being ripped off.” But Louis Klamroth has suspicions about her.
Climate activist Carla Hinrichs and former Environment Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) surprisingly agree on what is supposed to be a major German achievement in the area of climate protection. “We are being fooled by this conference. The international community is also fooling us, but especially our own government,” said Hinrichs on Monday evening on the show “Hard but Fair”.
The guests
Julia Verlinden (B’90/Greens), deputy group leader
Peter Altmaier (CDU), former environment and economics minister
Carla Hinrichsspeaker “Last Generation”
Clemens FuestPresident of the IFO Institute
Sven PlögerARD meteorologist
Werner Eckertenvironmental expert SWR
Hinrichs criticized: The 100 million US dollars from Germany for the international climate fund should be sold as a major coup. But the disaster in the Ahr Valley alone cost 300 times more. “I expressly agree with Ms. Hinrichs on this argument,” said Altmaier.
“Hard but fair” for the climate summit
“This will not save a single island state from sinking,” said the ex-Chancellor’s Office minister about the UN climate fund presented in Dubai and the German contribution. In the past, finance was thought in completely different dimensions at the UN world climate conferences.
Altmaier doubted the repeated assurances of Green Party deputy Julia Verlinden that the traffic light coalition had closed 80 percent of the climate gap left by the Grand Coalition: “That’s on paper.” Verlinden’s party colleague, Economics Minister Robert Habeck, doesn’t have the money for this at the moment. “The gap is not closed yet. You have measures, you have plans. But they have to be implemented. And that is the problem all over the world.”
Hinrichs accused the federal government of saying that all of its COP28 promises were “in ruins.” She referred to the recent ruling by the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court, according to which the government is not meeting its own climate protection goals. “Germany must be almost ashamed in some way to travel there and make big noises when their own courts confirm that it is not enough,” said the representative of the “Last Generation”.
Of course, Altmaier didn’t want to talk about “messing around”. But he also thought that Germany didn’t present a good image in Dubai. “If we criticize the ‘Last Generation’ but don’t comply with our own laws, then we lose all credibility, not only nationally but also internationally,” complained the CDU politician. “That’s why I hope that this law will be corrected again.”
Altmaier thus opposed the traffic light coalition’s plans to define only a single upper limit for the emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases. As before, he voted in favor of setting separate limits for sectors such as transport or construction. “That’s a planned economy, Mr. Altmaier. That’s unreasonable,” protested Clemens Fuest, President of the IFO Institute.
Klamroth doubts Klimakleberin’s motives
Speaking of “unreasonable”: Does your method even work? Klamroth wanted to know from the climate gluer. “I think it works pretty well. I’m sitting here today and can use it to address my message to a large, large audience,” replied Hinrichs. “That means you don’t want to increase approval ratings for climate protection measures, you just want to be on television?” suggested the moderator, who is in a relationship with Luisa Neubauer from the climate movement “Fridays for Future”.
The majorities for climate protection have long been there, contradicted Hinrichs. It’s about implementation through politics. In a democracy, this works through pressure, including from the street. However, ARD meteorologist Sven Plöger warned that the constant crisis mode of the past few years was increasingly wearing people down. The feeling of losing control leads to insecurity and many directly into the arms of populists.
