Climate change in Germany
2019-2023
First comes the rain in persistent heaviness, as happened in the flood disaster in the west of Germany in the summer of 2021, and then in the summer of 2022 it is missing at every turn. Within a short period of time, climate change has moved close to us from an incomprehensible phenomenon. The disasters caused by man-made climate change are coming closer and closer and more often.
The average temperature in Germany has risen between 1881 and 2019 by 1.6° Celsius. Climate change came with the industrial revolution and the ever-increasing CO2 emissions of mankind.
Twenty-year-old Lüke Reckenwald is a true Islander, and his family has lived on Langeoog for generations. In 2021, he joined a lawsuit with eight other young people against the Federal Government of Germany, which won at the Federal Court of Justice, forcing the Federal Government to sharpen its climate protection goals. Due to climate change, storm surges are on the increase, and now sand has to be pumped into Dunne every year by a special ship to repair the storm damage. The island's drinking water supply is also threatened. Due to rising sea levels, salt water could penetrate the only source of drinking water and make it unusable for decades - with serious consequences for life on the island.
In mid-July 2021, persistent flooding occurred in western Germany. Which cost the lives of 186 people in Germany alone. Of particular importance for the development of floods is that warmer air can absorb more water and thus heavy rainfall events occur more frequently with global warming.
Trude Bresgen stands in front of her house in the old town of Bad Münsteifel after the Erft destroyed large parts of the medieval town.
In Winterberg in the Sauerland, an immense effort is made to keep the skiing business going. A so-called snow factory ensures snow even at temperatures above zero. With the new facilities, the people of Winterberg are independent of the outside temperatures. But because the Snowfactory consumes considerably more energy than other snow cannons, it is only used "to close gaps".
A population of Alexandrine parakeets has settled in the warm Rhein region in Bonn.
Moorland originally covered 1.5 million hectares, or 4.2 % of Germany's land area. Today, 95 percent of it is dead - that is, drained, peated, cultivated, used for agriculture or forestry. Nationwide, about 44 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents are thus released annually from drained peat soils. This corresponds to about five percent of the total emissions of the Federal Republic of Germany. Draining the peatlands again would be a very efficient climate protection measure and would store far more Co2 than forests.
High performance computing for applied and basic research in climate science in German Climate Computing Centre in Hamburg.
Schneefernerhaus Environmental Research Station on the German highest mountain Zugspitze.
Since the protest against lignite mining moved from the nearby Hambach open pit mine to Garzweiler, up to 100 climate activists have settled in Lützerath. They live in tents, tree houses, caravans and squatted houses and want to defend the place against demolition. Lützerath has become a symbol of resistance against lignite. For a long time, farmer Eckardt Heukamp fought for his listed farm on which he grew up and against the Garzweiler coal mine. After losing to RWE in several instances, he has now sold his farm to RWE.
