International committee of experts presents road-map for climate protection

Berlin. “You do pioneer work.” That was how Jeremy Rifkin summed up the first German Climate Congress, organised by the EnBW in Berlin, which ended today, Thursday. As the initiator of the congress, EnBW Chairman of the Board Prof. Utz Claassen emphasised that climatic change is threatening the existence of humanity. “Climate protection is of epochal significance. There is therefore no alternative to global development of the renewable energies, with the development of storage and transport media as a core topic. However, this is possible only if we can seek and find an approach that spans corporations and unites politics and business." The scientists who took part in the two-day expert summit “Changing Climate – Facts, Consequences, Perspectives” presented their conclusions in the form of a road map – the "Berlin Declaration" – for climate protection.

In their joint declaration, the participants in the EnBW’s first German Climate Congress advocated rethinking on the subject of climate protection. The changes in the climate must at last be seen as fact, and give rise to specific actions, demand well-known climatologists such as USeconomist Jeremy Rifkin or meteorologist Prof. Mojib Latif. One of the most important goals in this respect is to limit the worldwide rise in temperature to at most two degrees. The worldwide production of CO2 must therefore be halved by 2050. As a first step in this direction, the “Berlin Declaration” therefore provides for the formation of an open, regular German climate group, in which representatives of politics, business and the sciences are to jointly develop measures towards more climate-friendly energy policies.

The declaration is an important signal, as Mojib Latif emphasises. The time has now come to stop debating and to act. Jeremy Rifkin also expressed his satisfaction at the outcome of the congress: “The conference was an international platform of outstanding importance. With our declaration, we have presented results that will have a sustained effect.” The organiser of the congress is the EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG. “Only when science and business pull together can we assure energy supply and ecological balance for the generations to come – and as an energy concern, we see that as one of our central tasks. We at the EnBW will further intensify our efforts in the area of energy efficiency over and above our present activities, and will take no decisions that ignore the aspect of climate protection,” Claassen summed up.