Peter Altmaier,
Ministers,
Our future host from Qatar, Excellency,

You have passed on the best wishes of the Emir and I would like to return these greetings in front of you all. I am very grateful to you that Qatar will host the next climate conference. It is, I feel, a reflection of our changed world that Qatar has declared its readiness to organize the next climate conference in Doha. Let me say quite honestly: when I was Environment Minister from 1994 to 1998 and negotiated the Berlin Mandate here in Berlin in the run-up to the Kyoto Protocol, I would never have thought that one of the Gulf States would host a climate conference. So we can see the world is changing. And it is moving in this case to where the Kyoto and Rio processes have brought us, to a common yet differentiated responsibility.

People tell me you had an interesting debate earlier on the question of equity. To my mind, equity in all its aspects – and particularly when it comes to climate protection – is a truly global issue. It is connected to justice, it is connected to how to shoulder shared responsibility and at the same time offer people the same opportunities. We know we are carrying a burden of history with us. After all, some had a very egoistic interpretation of equity in the past. For that reason, others say: we can’t end up in a situation where people call on us now to shoulder shared responsibility. Surely the past has to feed into our understanding of equity today. But even if we take equity as meaning that those who have sinned in the past cannot emit any harmful gases such as CO2 in the future, we still have to realize that even then we won’t reach the target we all want, that is, the two-degree goal. So we do need common responsibility.

Thus my hope for you is that this meeting here in Berlin marks what every cyclist in the mountains knows – our Environment Minister does a bit of cycling but I don’t know if he ventures into the mountains: you have to use the momentum of going downhill to get up to the next peak. That is what we are talking about here. We are working on not losing momentum so we can get results in Qatar in November.

To my mind, this staging post on the road to Qatar needs to provide urgent momentum. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets if I tell you my two lasting memories from Durban. The first one is that we achieved something unbelievably important. We were all concerned we would never see a binding climate agreement and we have a stronger feeling after Durban that we do have the chance to agree on a binding climate programme, a climate agreement. That is the good news. And the bad news: the Kyoto Protocol is running out and we haven’t managed to connect a successor agreement. In the meantime, in the period after losing something and before gaining something new, a lot can happen. Between the financial and economic crisis and many other things, there are numerous factors which could prevent us from pouring our energy into this question so crucial for our future. For this very reason, much will depend on you. It will depend on you whether the conference in Doha and those following really make the necessary progress. Whether what we have planned for 2015 – with entry into force in 2020 – actually happens.

What makes it difficult is that climate protection always means us making changes. Change sometimes also triggers anxiety: will I manage, can I do that, what does it mean, do I know all the implications? What people tend to forget in this discussion is that if we continue as before we will have fewer concerns in the short term but this failure to act – as illustrated at the very latest in the Stern report – will have devastating consequences. That is why I am convinced it is better for all of us in the world to make changes instead of doing nothing thereby causing dreadful side effects for us all.

So when people ask in the midst of the fundamental debate whether all the climate prognoses will actually happen exactly as predicted or whether the researchers – I think research is doing well here – have got to the bottom of every last detail of everything, I simply have no desire to spend a hundred times longer discussing each potential error in the prognoses than discussing the steps we need to take if we want to tackle climate change.

One thing for sure: today there are seven billion people in the world, and some day there will be nine billion. Fossil fuels are finite. But quite apart from climate change, something I absolutely believe in, there are many good reasons to use the resources of our Earth differently than we are doing today. What I mean is that the motto of this year’s Petersberg Dialogue “Matching Ambition with Action” expresses exactly what we need. We need to have a clear ambition to achieve the agreed targets. In the meantime, we need to act. We need to do something. We need to develop, launch and run projects so we can learn more about mitigation and the question of how to contain changes to our climate.

Everyone in this room knows time is short. I’m saying it again because the press is here with us. You can’t say it often enough. There is no point playing for time. The two-degree goal is certainly not too ambitious. Even that requires the highest degree of adaptation of our ecosystems we can imagine. We know that the voluntary commitments we have on the table now will not enable us to meet this two-degree goal. Despite the failure in Copenhagen, it was an interesting exercise for everyone to say for once what they were prepared to give and do. But all of this together certainly does not enable us to limit the temperature increase to two degrees. It is more likely to be twice that – the jury is out on whether it will be three or four degrees. But what that means you can read in the Stern report.

A binding set of rules, let me quite honest with you, is like music to my ears because it is something we have never had. So far, common responsibility was undermined by the attitude: it doesn’t have to be binding for all. So I know how difficult it will be to insist on the rules being binding.

We have a situation where we have to clarify any unresolved questions on the second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. The European Union advocates ambitious rules here. But we know not everyone who joined in the Kyoto Protocol is with us. Kyoto II will be something of a test. The industrialized countries shouldn’t kid themselves here. If we the industrialized nations weren’t to do anything and say “Kyoto I has run out, we don’t care what happens in the meantime, we’ll just wait and see what happens in 2020”, then the emerging economies would be right to say “The industrialized countries going into these negotiations in such a flippant way can’t expect us to move”.

That is why we need a real rethink, particularly in our understanding of what growth means. We of course understand that growth also has to be expressed as an increase in GDP. That’s the way it has been for years. When I follow the debate in Germany currently about how China is maybe only growing by a mere 7.5% instead of 9% and see the horror this triggers even in Germany, then I don’t want to pretend we are talking about qualitative growth only. We are of course still talking about quantitative growth. But we will only meet this challenge if we see growth as more than just quantitative growth.

Particularly the representatives from emerging economies know that a growth in GDP that goes hand in hand with river pollution, environmental degradation, a drop in resources available for food production, is not exactly positive growth in the sense of better quality of life for the people. That is why a new understanding of growth will make the change easier. But I want to be self-critical here and say: the discussion on the financial and economic crisis or indeed the discussion we are having on the real source of the difficulties in the euro area are all conducted looking almost exclusively at quantative aspects.

If people in Europe say “We have run up too much debt in the past, we have become less competitive, we have to learn to deal differently with our capabilities, we have to reform”; if such reforms almost per se mean a further shrinking of growth rates in the period of transition to then have a more sustainable growth path, then this also triggers a broad global discussion along the lines of “That is impossible. Everyone needs quantitative growth”. To this I say: what matters is making things sustainable.

When I was in Indonesia last week, I saw a country that had suffered very much from the Asian banking crisis, that has completed its process of adaptation starting in 2004 and is now growing well and has managed to reduce its debt as a percentage of GDP from 80% in 2004 to 24% in 2012. There are many countries in the world – take Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and others – who can understand the adaptation difficulties we are having in the euro area as we try to anchor sustainable growth.

When we think about sustainability, it always comes down to the same question: how are we thinking about future generations? If we introduce a new concept of growth in all political spheres, it is easier to convince people of the need for climate protection because they are changing their whole mindset.

When I am in Qatar, in the United Arab Emirates or in Saudi Arabia, I know these countries that are still highly dependent on fossil fuels in turn know that they cannot build their future solely on the exploitation of these resources and that they cannot use their revenue purely for consumption but that they have to invest as innovatively as possible to ensure sustainable development paths emerge for future generations.

Thus it is very important that we are serious about what we discussed under the heading green economy both at the G20 Summit in Los Cabos and at the Rio+20 Conference and that we manage to decouple our economic figures from resource consumption. Germany has shown the way forward time and again. In 2010 we had 24% fewer CO2 emissions than in 1990. In the same period, our economy chalked up considerable growth. This period also saw German reunification which distorted the picture somewhat meaning decoupling elsewhere might be less dramatic. But decoupling is possible.

In Germany we are making our contribution to the green economy by completely realigning our energy supplies. But we are currently also seeing that attaining our triad of goals – security of supply, affordability and respect for the environment – is no easy task. To those who say it can’t be that difficult, I say: it is right that our Environment Minister is thinking this through carefully and tells us we have to think of all three aspects at the same time – this reflects our idea of sustainability – and thus shape our shift to green energy in the same fash¬ion. The social component – the affordability of electricity – as well as the environmental aspects and the fact that people want reliable energy supplies all year round, are inextricably linked.

If we in Germany manage – and I’m convinced we can – to shift from fossil fuels and nuclear energy supplies first by phasing out nuclear energy and then by reducing the proportion of fossil fuels in the coming decades by moving towards renewable energies, then we will make a contribution insofar as other countries can learn and benefit from these experiences. That is part of what I mean in saying: we pushed ahead with industrialization at the expense of the environment and now we have a certain responsibility to help shape the learning process with regard to renewable and sustainable energy supplies. We know everything has its price. But this is a price we are going to pay because we are convinced it is the way forward.

We also know full well how difficult it is to improve energy efficiency. And I want to be self-critical here and point out: Germany didn’t always do itself proud, for example in the negotiations on the energy efficiency directive in the European Union. Don’t be mistaken in thinking we are free of conflict on this. The ideas of an Economics Minister and the ideas of an Environment Minister are just as different here as they are in many of your countries. It is the Federal Chancellor who has then to bring about a decent solution.

In our highly industrialized countries, people are also highly sceptical about new infrastructure projects. Many people say: we’ve all got electricity, we’ve all got power lines, why do we need new ones now? When we point out that we need thousands of kilometres of new power lines to transport wind energy from the north to the major industrial plants in the south, this leads to serious disputes with the population. That is why we have to conduct these debates transparently and with the people.

I know many countries are now cutting their emissions. Let me cite a few examples. Mexico has adopted the General Law on Climate Change providing for a 50% cut in emissions compared to the year 2000. South Africa has presented a national vision for a CO2 friendly economy. South Korea has launched an emissions trading system. This summer, Japan wants to develop a new strategy for the energy sector. China is working on setting up pilot projects for emissions trading in some cities and provinces to push ahead with renewable energies. Brazil and India have interesting climate protection projects. In Indonesia, I also brought up the question of the rainforest. There, too, they have ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions. Britain wants to reduce its emissions by at least 80% by 2050. France has also announced new climate policy initiatives.

As you can see, there is a lot going on around the globe. What we need to do now is tie it all together. With its CO2 allowance system, the European Union also has a pilot function when it comes to exchanging experience on allowance trading. In Germany we want to channel all the revenue from the auctioning of emission allowances into an energy and climate fund. The allowance prices are currently not as high as we expected. We had earmarked the revenue for international and national projects. But we’ll keep working on this. We were also one of the first countries to pledge a financial contribution to the Green Climate Fund.

Ladies and gentlemen, here in this room I probably don’t need to convince you of the benefits of a low-carbon economy – that is your daily bread – but I do want to encourage you once more to continue resolutely on the path on which we have embarked whether in Cancún, South Africa or even a few years ago when we met in Indonesia. It isn’t going to be easy to get there by 2015. That much is clear. For 180 countries to do something together is simply very difficult. But the more each individual country does, and the more each region of our world acts as a pioneer in its own way, takes action and thinks about what it can contribute, the more there will be a common understanding that we need to succeed in this mammoth task of concluding an international agreement.

When I became Environment Minister in 1994, the politicians from that field were the trail blazers when it came to cooperation in the global sphere, something we take for granted today. In the light of the international financial crisis, environment policy needs to fight to maintain its role as pioneer. But it is certainly worth shouldering responsibility for how we deal with our natural sources of life – with our earth, with our air, with our water. We need to ask ourselves: why do we need business? What is it there for? It has to be for the good of the people. Think about what has happened on the financial markets: they decoupled themselves from the good of the people, they were miles away from reality and then wreaked havoc for so many. It is ultimately up to you to ensure this does not happen again with natural resources.

That is why I was happy to come here today. That is why I wish you all the best for your discussions. That is why Germany will do everything to make sure Qatar’s presidency is a success. As I am lucky enough to have visited Doha, I can tell you that it is also a very exciting place to be. I hope we will see positive results in Doha and do useful groundwork here in Berlin.

Thank you very much.