Focus on Arts and Ecology

The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the upcoming climate negotiations and global trends in the energy sector – these topics were discussed by Nicole Wilke, Head of the German delegation to the UN climate negotiations; Dr. Camilla Bausch of Ecologic Institute and Susanne Dröge, Senior Fellow at the SWP during a panel discussion on "Current Challenges in Climate and Energy Policy" at the Foreign Office in Berlin.

Nicole Wilke outlined the status quo of the negotiations and framed expectations for the upcoming UNFCCC summit(link is external) in Bonn. She underlined the importance of raising ambition to halt global warming as agreed in Paris(link is external). In this context, Susanne Dröge (link is external)underlined the challenge posed by the US or more specifically the withdrawal of President Trump(link is external) from the Paris Climate Agreement(link is external). While she explained that the US was a difficult partner in the climate arena also under President George W. Bush(link is external), she underlined the many positive trends at the subnational level with respect to climate protection. Dr. Bausch referred to the international breakthroughs of 2015, when the Paris Agreement, but also the Agenda 2030(link is external) with its Sustainable Development Goals(link is external) were passed. These positive impulses in the policy field were made possible and also could be implemented building on the fast moving positive trends in the economic field, especially regarding cost reduction and deployment of renewable energies and energy storage. Nevertheless, she pointed to the challenging and controversial negotiations of the G20 (link is external)in particular on the climate topic, and the difficulties e.g. of Germany to meet its own commitments for the energy transition for 2020. Overall, the panel agreed that strong political will and respective policies are needed to implement the Paris Agreement successfully.