Extreme climate events are becoming more probable; climate chaos is threatening. This is not scaremongering, but an increasingly realistic assessment of climate risk and its significance for the future of the human race. Up to now, political responses to climate protection have been inadequate. The Kyoto Protocol is an important beginning.Now the focus must be on KyotoPlus.

Implicatons of KyotoPlus

New Targets: The foundations for the energy system of coming decades are now being laid with investments in infrastructure. Investors require direction and security. It is therefore crucial that, based on the Kyoto Protocol, ambitious new emission targets be set now for the period after 2012. These targets should be designed to keep the worldwide rise in temperature below 20 degrees Celsius. At the same time, the Protocol must be further developed into an international legal framework that is equal to the challenge.

New technologies: We already have new technologies at our disposal that enable us to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ecologically and socially compatible climate protection technologies must be further developed and introduced on the market much more quickly. Investments and R&D in these technologies need to be scaled up dramatically.

New policies: Political frameworks must create the conditions for dynamic markets, in order to overcome the inertia of traditional structures and to accelerate technological change. The German Renewable Energy Law, for example, has demonstrated how the conditions for new technologies and energies can be extensively and effectively improved. We need new, creative instruments and programmes for an enormous increase in energy and material efficiency, for CO2-free mobility and for new forms of production and consumption.

New alliances, players and forms of action: The challenge calls for new players and new alliances,both at the national and international level. Together the EU and China can accelerate the breakthrough to a new global energy economy.Institutional investors realize that climate change is a material risk, but also an opportunity for future profits. Subnational actors such as cities, states and provinces are taking the lead in protecting the climate. These are only a few examples of the new alliances that we need to move forward.

New targets, new technologies, new policies and new alliances are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Together they create a new dynamic for climate protection. The international congress “KyotoPlus: Escaping the Climate Trap” (Berlin,September 28-30, 2006) will combine these four approaches in a “magic square” of climate policy.

The congress will create a forum for actors from government, industry, the cultural sector, churches and society. The whole programme can be downloaded here.