Internationale Klimapolitik

For a year and a half, representatives from the real economy, the financial sector, academia and civil society fought hard to reach an agreement on how Germany could become a prime hub for sustainable finance . On February 25, the final report of the German government's Sustainable Finance Advisory Council (SFB) was published, with ambitious recommendations on how to make the financial market more sustainable: Shifting the Trillions - A Sustainable Financial System to facilitate the Great Transformation. It is now the government's turn to translate the recommendations into an effective strategy and initiate the first legislative changes before the end of this legislative term.

This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. This article kicks off and introduces our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", in which we aim to shed light on the need for and benefits of forward-looking reporting requirements in a changing EU regulatory environment.

In order for the socio-ecological transformation to succeed, actors from civil society, politics, the private sector and academia must work together at an eye level to develop common goals and cooperate to achieve them. This is where the concept of multi-actor partnership (MAP) comes in: Based on the assumption that committed cooperation leads to viable solutions, multi-actor partnerships must take into account and take seriously the complex interests of the actors involved and affected. Thus, they are much more than just a consultation round of different partners. The analysis and the recommendations derived from it are based on the experience gained by local partners in tandem with Germanwatch in seven MAPs in the field of climate, energy and just transformation in different country contexts.

As a response to the Covid-19 crisis the EU has agreed on a historic recovery package of 750€ Billion, which includes funds for EU member states. In order to apply for financial support, EU member states need to provide Recovery and Resilience Plans. They may take into consideration country-specific recommendations, developed annually to address macroeconomic imbalance issues among EU Member States as identified within the European Semester.

In addition to amplifying extreme weather events, climate change also causes or intensifies slow-onset processes such as sea-level rise, desertification, biodiversity loss or permafrost thaw. Both types of climate change impacts cause loss and damage, impede the enjoyment of human rights and can be drivers for human mobility. In contrast to extreme weather events, dealing with loss and damage caused by slow-onset processes in the context of climate change is still neglected, both at the national and international level.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heat waves etc.). The most recent data available — for 2019 and from 2000 to 2019 — were taken into account. The countries and territories affected most in 2019 were Mozambique, Zimbabwe as well as the Bahamas. For the period from 2000 to 2019 Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.