A solution to the global energy and climate challenges is possible. The GES reference solution demonstrates how ten billion people could enjoy a life of freedom, adequate prosperity, social balance, and harmony with nature by 2070. The guiding principle is achieving global energy well-being through innovation and markets, rather than managing energy scarcity.
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Our society is currently facing a multitude of challenges – from the climate and energy crises to the war in Ukraine and sharply rising prices. In an interview with the magazine Wirtschaft im Südwesten (published by the Chambers of Industry and Commerce in the Freiburg administrative district), Prof. Radermacher discusses the consequences he expects from the current developments.
“One problem is that everything is urgent. The nature of these issues doesn’t allow us to tackle them one by one.” The key challenge, he explains, is to distinguish between strategies that primarily benefit wealthy countries and those that truly help the climate. As potential solutions, Prof. Radermacher highlights Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) – capturing, utilizing, and storing CO₂ – as well as Nature-Based Solutions, such as reforestation, humus formation, rainforest protection, and related measures.
The full interview – which also covers topics such as the usefulness of the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and whether expanding renewable energy can solve our problems – can be found here.
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In a new analysis, Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. h.c. Franz Josef Radermacher examines the question of which opportunities international climate policy could have seized in the past to stabilize the climate situation at comparatively low costs. Ten, twenty, and thirty years ago, there were extensive political and scientific debates from which solutions could have emerged. Nevertheless, most of these opportunities went unused.
The new text explores these missed opportunities in depth, also considering what lessons we can draw from them for the future.
A shorter version of the text appears as an essay in Kursbuch 202: Donner, Wetter, Klima, Murmann Publishers, 2020, and is available online.
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed important sustainability goals into the background. Private engagement is now more important than ever. In an article for the Rheinische Post, Prof. Dr. Estelle Herlyn, head of the Competence Center for Sustainable Development at FOM University Düsseldorf and freelance collaborator of FAW/n, discusses the opportunities and risks arising from the current crisis.
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What environmentalists and climate activists have not achieved, the coronavirus seems to accomplish. The economy is at a standstill, air traffic is halted worldwide, and people are driving significantly less. Is the pandemic saving the climate? Or is it only giving it a brief respite? And most importantly: what happens once the shutdown is lifted? In an interview with the Südwest Presse, Prof. Radermacher discusses the benefits that COVID-19 may have for the climate and the lessons that can be learned for the period after the crisis.
You can download the full interview: “COVID-19 Pandemic Helps the Climate” here.
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Franz Josef Radermacher
Abstract
The global energy and climate crisis can be solved in a way that is compatible with growth and conducive to prosperity. The increasingly panicked public debates about an impending apocalypse, climate command economies, and the complete electrification of the mobility sector fail to do justice to the multidimensional nature of the challenge. In contrast, the approach described here allows Africa, India, and other emerging economies to follow China’s development path – without negative climate impacts. Using this approach, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be achieved by 2050. Three key elements must be combined: (1) the methanol economy, (2) soils as carbon sinks, and (3) development-promoting CO₂ compensation projects to implement the 2030 Agenda.
The carbon-based liquid fuel segment of the economy could be expanded by 50% by 2050 under the proposed strategy. By recycling carbon four times within a hydrogen/methanol economy, CO₂ emissions could be reduced to about 10 billion tons per year (compared to 34 billion tons per year today), even amid strong economic growth. This investment and transformation program could be implemented by the fossil energy sector, one of the world’s most powerful industries, by 2050. Annual investments in the methanol sector are estimated at around €600 billion per year.
Through massive global reforestation, especially on marginalized land in the tropics, the promotion of humus formation in agriculture (particularly in semi-arid regions), and the use of biochar, soils could become a carbon sink for the remaining 10 billion tons of CO₂ per year. This would also increase agricultural productivity – a necessity given the rapidly growing global food demand in a prosperous world with 10 billion people. In this way, the carbon cycle can be closed. Forest and agricultural projects play a key role in the Alliance for Development and Climate, launched by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in 2018.
In addition to international climate protection, this initiative particularly promotes development, thus addressing the social dimension of a sustainable future. High-quality projects in developing countries simultaneously generate co-benefits across all SDGs (Agenda 2030) and achieve positive climate effects. This approach offers great potential for ensuring that the world’s population reaches its peak of 10 billion by 2050 and then begins to decline gradually.
At the heart of this solution lies the methanol economy, powered by low-cost solar energy from the Earth’s sunbelt. Just as the invention of the steam engine 300 years ago unlocked the potential of coal for human prosperity, renewable energy combined with the solar potential of major deserts (Desertec 2.0) holds the key to leading humanity out of its current dead end in development, energy, and climate through a hydrogen/methanol economy.
Download: Methanol Economy and Soil Improvement (DE)
Image source: Philippe Roos (flickr) Ain-Beni-Mathar-2010-10-27-016
“The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sends a clear message: Climate change is increasingly becoming a question of humanity’s survival. If we do not act decisively now, millions of people will be forced to leave their homes. To slow down climate change and mitigate its impacts, the German Federal Government provided €3.65 billion last year. Of that, more than €3 billion was made available by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) alone to support climate protection and adaptation projects in developing countries.
But that is far too little. We would need to invest at least ten times that amount to promote climate-neutral development. This requires the large-scale generation of negative emissions – for example, through reforestation and humus-rich agriculture in semi-arid regions – as well as the promotion of renewable energies, energy efficiency, and synthetic fuels in non-industrialized countries.
Unfortunately, these international approaches have so far received too little attention in the German debate. The focus is mainly on the situation in Germany and on local activities, even though these alone cannot solve the climate problem. Even for the planned national measures, the available funds are insufficient. There is certainly no adequate financing for a more extensive international climate policy. Nevertheless, this has not stopped people from interpreting the IPCC report as if it also emphasized a primarily national focus.
Against this background, we are pleased that Minister Müller and the BMZ will launch a multi-stakeholder initiative called the Alliance for Development and Climate in the coming months. The goal is to engage non-state actors – especially companies and wealthy individuals – in making voluntary contributions to international climate protection and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda through high-quality voluntary CO₂ offsetting measures in non-industrialized countries.
Mobilizing non-state actors is currently one of the greatest opportunities we have to perhaps still achieve the 2°C target.”
Plant-for-the-Planet, the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, the Senate of Economy, the Foundation Responsibility, and many other actors pursue a different approach: international activities, massive reforestation, negative emissions, and emphasizing the special responsibility of the top emitters – those are wealthy individuals with a pronounced lifestyle and several hundred tons of individual CO₂ emissions per year.
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All the points addressed in the special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Global Warming of 1.5°C”, can be found in the new book “The Billionaire Joker”, published by Murmann Verlag, by the institute’s director. It can be read as a response to the latest global climate report.
A book full of surprising insights, information, and findings. Anyone who wants to participate knowledgeably in the current situation should definitely read this book.
Climate. Positive. Now.
Global warming is progressing relentlessly. The crucial question: Can the international community still prevent a climate catastrophe?
Franz Josef Radermacher is cautiously optimistic. His proposal is brilliantly simple and rigorously calculated: Non-state actors in Germany and Europe voluntarily and at their own expense offset their greenhouse gas emissions – beyond all legal requirements and other individual measures – through high-quality CO2 compensation projects in non-industrialized countries. At the same time, substantial co-benefits regarding the UN Sustainable Development Goals are achieved. Key elements of implementation include reforestation, humus formation, wetland restoration, use of renewable energies, and climate-neutral synthetic fuels.
Overcoming conflicts of objectives between ecology, economy, and social issues. For an ecologically and socially oriented economy and the valorization of degraded nature.
Der Milliarden-Joker.
Franz Josef Radermacher is one of the country’s leading economists and systems scientists. On the international stage, he advises governments, companies, associations, and NGOs.
Further Information
Books, that were also recently published on the same topic:
Climate Neutrality – Hessen 5 Years Ahead
Martin J. Worms, Franz Josef Radermacher
Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 01.10.2018 – 308 pages
The climate issue is gaining increasing importance. Global CO2 emissions continue to rise. In this context, the state of Hessen has taken an important step as a mid-level political entity, which is beginning to exert significant leverage. Hessen is the first German federal state to declare its intention to make its own administration climate-neutral by 2030. The Hessian climate-neutrality project is embedded in the state’s overarching sustainability strategy and is a project of outstanding significance within this strategy.
Excerpt from the Foreword
The international community has committed to the 2°C target in climate protection. In 2015, in Paris, this target was even tightened to “well below 2°C.” This goal requires that average global temperatures rise in the future by significantly less than 2°C compared to pre-industrial times. According to scientific analyses by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is still a good chance under this condition to manage climate changes without catastrophic consequences for humanity. According to the 1992 UN Climate Convention in Rio de Janeiro and the 2015 Paris Agreement, this involves jointly – but with shared responsibility among the states – controlling the risks of uncontrolled atmospheric change.
In this context, the state of Hessen decided in 2009 to achieve climate neutrality for its administration by 2030, going far beyond existing legal obligations. The state has systematically pursued this goal within its sustainability strategy, in connection with other activities, thereby setting an example and achieving strong influence. This mainly applies to its properties but also to employee business travel, and the state achieves much more through interactions with numerous actors in Hessen at all levels.
This volume presents the spectrum of climate-related activities achieved in Hessen, which is of particular interest to us as editors, documents the accomplishments, and places them in a global context. Who would have thought eight years ago that so much could be achieved in such a short time – or even five years ago, when the first edition of the now revised and newly published book “Climate Neutrality – Hessen Leads the Way” came out?
The present text analyzes, in the aftermath of the World Conference in Copenhagen, how much time remains to address the climate problem in line with the 2°C target – without a loss of prosperity and while maintaining prospects for growth – and which “jokers” (special measures or decisive actions) may already be necessary today. The text illustrates how narrow the remaining timeframe for achieving the target has become. The conclusions drawn here are even more striking than those derived from examining the development of the ecological footprint (see www.ecologicalfootprint.org), which also sends a clear message. However, since the ecological footprint excludes fossil energy sources, its implications are comparatively weaker.
Download: Global Climate Policy after Copenhagen
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