The air is getting thicker and thicker at the conference in Bonn. SB60 is supposed to end on Thursday and so far not much progress has been made, people are getting nervous. The debate about money is deadlocked without any vision, and many other issues are stalled. There are other problems, too: Activists and delegations complain that Germany is not issuing visas for the conference fast enough. Furthermore, the next COP host, Azerbaijan, is detaining critical journalists in the country. As everyone is waiting for the results from Bonn, our Climate.Table team in Bonn will be publishing a Table.Special with a summary after the conclusion of the conference.
Others are also getting nervous. The German government coalition is on a mission impossible: saving money while still raising six billion euros for international climate financing. Today, we write about the tricks for “creative budget management.” We also report on ideas to make Germany’s domestic climate policy fairer, which has so far been socially imbalanced. That and much more in today’s issue.
At the UN interim conference SB60 in Bonn, host country Germany has come under criticism due to visa issues. One accusation is mainly raised by countries and activists from the Global South: Activists and important delegation members have received their visas too late or not at all. This mostly affects people from African and South-East Asian countries, such as Senegal, Morocco, Uganda, the Philippines and Liberia, including many young members of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition and Fridays for Future Africa.
According to Table.Briefings information, the UN Climate Change Secretariat is aware of the problems. When asked, the Federal Foreign Office stated that it was important for the German government to ensure that all accredited conference participants were present at the negotiations. The legal requirements for issuing visas are based on the Schengen area’s rules. Delayed visas are usually the result of conference participants submitting their applications at too short notice.
Laura Schäfer, Head of International Climate Policy at the NGO Germanwatch, said that some delegates had arrived in Bonn so late that negotiations on their issues had already ended. “This means that the countries they should have represented were not represented on these issues in Bonn.”
A delegate from an African country who wished to remain anonymous confirmed the problems to Table.Briefings. She complained that the German embassy in her home country had failed to provide information on the Internet about the documents required to obtain a visa, meaning she had to come in person. She was only received days later. By the time she had all the necessary information and documents, the embassy had told her she was too late. “As a result, I didn’t even apply.” She only managed to get a visa and travel thanks to personal contacts.
The climate adaptation expert only arrived in Bonn halfway through the conference. “This meant that my country’s delegation could not be present in all rooms. It couldn’t negotiate everywhere, and we missed out on important information.”
One delegate from the group of the least developed countries said that she had not received a visa and could not attend the conference. She said she had provided all the necessary documents to the embassy. “This is particularly worrying for delegates from LDCs, which are disproportionately affected by climate change.”
Civil society campaigns, for example, on climate financing, were also quieter due to the lack of activists, says Hamira Kobusingye, Fridays for Future coordinator from Uganda: “If more people were here, there would be more diverse voices, and if negotiators from all countries were represented here, the negotiations would probably be more balanced.”
The reasons for the problems are manifold. Documents available to Table.Briefings explain the refusal of visas with, among other things, “well-founded doubts about the intention to leave the territory of the member states before the visa expires,” the lack of proof of sufficient financial means, and – despite having UN accreditation – “no credible” information “about the purpose and conditions of the planned stay.” In one case, an appointment at the embassy was not possible because it was closed for an extended period due to a power outage.
It is said that young activists, in particular, often have problems providing the required proof of financing their stay. The time it takes to process visa applications also seems problematic. Ina Maria Shikongo, an activist from Namibia, says that in order to obtain a visa, one must apply for a personal appointment at the embassy around three months in advance. However, the Climate Secretariat does not issue accreditation for the Bonn interim summits until around May. By the time the appointments were made at the embassy, the funding for the trip had been secured, and the necessary documents had been collected, “the SB conference is already over.“
Kobusingye also says that the issuing process is too slow. “The SBs are held every year. The embassies must be prepared for this” and process the applications faster. Kobusingye explains that the embassy in Uganda took 15 days to process her application, but she could only submit her documents 12 days before her planned departure “because I received my UN accreditation very late.” Although she paid an extra fee for a faster process and submitted complete documents, other applications were processed faster. Kobusingye had to postpone her flight and also arrived in Bonn a few days late.
In the run-up to the final debate in Bonn, some NGOs are calling for the visa process for people with UN accreditation to be fast-tracked and more closely linked to the accreditation process of the Climate Secretariat. Then, for instance, documents already checked by the UN Climate Secretariat during the accreditation process would not have to be included again with the visa application. Other demands call for a more transparent and less expensive process, making it easier for people from the Global South to attend the UN Interim Conference in Bonn.
The Federal Foreign Office states that accreditation for the UN Interim Conference cannot replace the actual examination of the visa application. The respective countries’ diplomatic missions must examine each case to ensure that the legal conditions for a Schengen visa are met.
The German coalition government is in a tight spot when it comes to financing international climate action: On the one hand, the national budget for 2025 is 25 to 30 billion euros short. On the other hand, it wants to support international climate action. It has also publicly and repeatedly pledged to spend at least six billion euros annually on this from 2025. This has led to discussions in political Berlin about a tempting alternative: “creative accounting” for climate finances.
Germany’s uncertain financial promise comes in 2024 of all years when the UN states at COP29 in Baku have to decide on a new financing target (NCQG) for 2025. Germany has been one of the most important and reliable donors to date and one of the loudest advocates of more financial commitment from developed countries – but also from emerging economies such as China, Korea, Singapore and the oil states. After all, the developed countries club OECD has now officially certified that the industrialized countries have reached and exceeded the promised 100 billion US dollars for climate aid for the first time in 2022 with 116 billion for poor countries.
Of all years, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s repeated promise to remain a reliable climate financing partner with the six billion euros from public funds falls in the austerity budget for the 2025 election year. The situation is dire. If the national budget falls through, the German government coalition is on the brink of collapse. The players are correspondingly nervous about financial matters. In the Table.Media podcast, SPD Development Minister Svenja Schulze was pessimistic: It will be “very, very difficult to keep the promises with significantly less money.”
The current stipulations of the Ministry of Finance cut deep into the budgets of the relevant ministries. Finance Minister Christian Lindner has already announced plans to slash the budget for development aid, which he called “very high.”
This would affect the ministry that is by far the most important for international climate financing: 86 percent of all German climate aid comes from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). In the 2022 budget, the last year for comparison due to the delayed reporting of climate funds, around 5.5 billion euros of the 12.2 billion budget was counted as climate aid. In the 2025 budget, BMZ funds are projected to fall to 9.9 billion. If climate funds were cut proportionately, Schulze’s ministry would only have around four billion available for climate aid.
Outside the BMZ, the “International Climate Initiative” (IKI) is the most important instrument. Since 2008, Germany has used it to fund 950 climate projects in around 150 countries with over six billion euros. Currently, these are mainly initiatives in 14 priority countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Colombia and Mexico. According to the BMWK, a total of 735 million was earmarked for this in the 2024 budget, comprised of:
The IKI is Germany’s largest fund for projects exclusively intended to promote international climate action. BMZ projects often also focus on development or poverty reduction, although the boundaries between climate and biodiversity protection have blurred in recent years. In November 2023, the IKI was realigned for its 15th anniversary to be more efficient.
Six months later, the much-praised IKI is under great pressure: Government circles have confirmed plans to make significant cuts to the IKI in the budget battle. Because the budgets of other departments, such as the Foreign Ministry, are also being axed, it is clear that the potential shortfall of around 1.5 billion euros from a BMZ austerity budget cannot be offset by the other ministries.
The government has limited alternatives: It could save the money elsewhere or increase its debt – although both are almost impossible to implement politically. It could openly admit that the money is not available despite its promises – thus seriously damaging the climate finance debate as one of the biggest global donors. This issue is currently central to the SB60 negotiations in Bonn, and such news would be toxic for trust between the UN states.
The alternative: The government could take one-off or multi-year “creative measures” in the budget with real or perceived effects, as the UK has recently done. It could:
The charm of all these “creative ideas” is that they would nominally lighten the 2025 budget and thus help secure the current government’s final budget for the time being. This would also spare Germany international criticism, as other countries are also often very creative when it comes to defining their climate aid.
And above all, any potential miscalculations in international climate financing would not officially surface until a year after the next parliamentary elections: The EU does not expect the first report on these dates before September 30, 2026.
Climate policy that is not socially just will not find acceptance. This theory, long voiced by social and environmental organizations, has been given new urgency by the recent results of the European elections. This Thursday, “Zukunft KlimaSozial,” a new think tank, will be launched. It has set itself the goal of combining climate and social policy and developing concepts for a socially just climate policy.
The new institute was founded by Brigitte Knopf, Deputy Chairwoman of the German government’s Expert Council for Climate Issues and, until the end of last year, Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute in Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). The initial team of seven also includes Ines Verspohl, former head of the social policy department at the VdK social association, Astrid Schaffert, who once co-founded the globalization-critical network Attac and who was most recently responsible for the climate policy of the Caritas association, and Marie Zeller. She previously worked for the Expert Council and the MCC. Their work is funded by the European Climate Foundation.
Zukunft KlimaSozial outlines the principles of its future activities in a detailed position paper, which will be published this Thursday and is available to Table.Briefings in advance. In it, the authors describe four pillars that they believe are necessary for a socially just transformation:
It is important to the initiators of “Zukunft KlimaSozial” that the debate is not – as is often the case – narrowed down to climate money and its exact form. “It’s part of the solution, but not the most important one,” said Verspohl. “We need to tackle the big blocks instead of engaging in shadow boxing.” An important prerequisite for implementing the demands is a better database, for example, on assets, the renovation status of housing, and public transport connections.
And what will happen to the costs and programs that have so far been paid for with the revenue from the carbon price? For example, covering the EEG levy, subsidies for clean heating systems and charging stations or the industry’s switch to hydrogen once the climate money is introduced? Knopf says that other financing options would have to be found for them. “We won’t be able to pay for the transformation from the carbon price alone.”
Another alliance is also focusing on strengthening the link between social and climate policy: Last week, Climate Alliance Germany, Diakonie and the National Poverty Conference published a joint demands paper. “There is a lack of a justice perspective in climate policy,” says Daniel Eggstein, Climate Policy and Social Justice Officer at Germany’s Civil Society Alliance for Climate Justice, in an interview with Table.Briefings.
In their paper, the organizations call for measures to “fight poverty and the climate crisis together.” These include
“However, climate money can only be one component of compensation,” says Eggstein. He believes that measures that support the switch to climate-neutral technologies are just as important. Eggstein is also certain that a socially just transformation “cannot be achieved with an austerity budget.” He is also aware that the revenue from the carbon price alone would not be enough to achieve this. Instead, it would require either a reform of the debt cap or a special fund. Furthermore, in times of challenges for society as a whole, the focus should also be on fair distribution and people with high wealth or inheritances should be taxed more heavily, he says.
Many in Germany remember Klaus Toepfer as the environment minister who swam the Rhine to prove it was clean. But for others around the world mourning his death, he will be remembered for his unique contribution to international environmental policy.
From 1998 to 2005, Klaus was Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a rescue mission after UNEP’s European funders threatened to close it down without a European leader in the late 1990s. Klaus seized the opportunity and used his tremendous energy, diplomatic skills, experience and intellect to travel across the globe to restore UNEP’s relevance. This was no easy task, as many developing countries saw environmental protection as a luxury of rich countries, while their mission was to lift people out of poverty.
From 1998 to 2005, Klaus served as Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a rescue mission after UNEP’s European donors in the late 1990s threatened to shut it down without a European head. Klaus seized the opportunity and deployed his formidable energy, diplomatic skills, experience and intellect to crisscross the globe to restore UNEP’s relevance. His was no easy task, with many developing countries viewing the environment as a rich country’s luxury when their task was to lift people out of poverty.
Shortly after I joined as Klaus’s press officer and speechwriter, we sat over a glass of wine pondering a slogan that would capture his vision. He was clear that a healthy environment was a prerequisite for economic development and human dignity. And so, UNEP-Environment for Development, was born. “So many people are against things, we have to stand for something,” he reflected.
Klaus was always keen for action and felt he needed to make positive change without waiting around for the blessing of often reluctant UN member states. As a result of the Balkan war he established a post conflict assessment unit. He was clear that the first priority after the conflict was humanitarian, but shortly afterward, the environmental services of a nation needed to be healed if peace and prosperity were to be restored.
Klaus was also inquisitive and passionately believed that science was the North Star to guide environmental policy. In a light aircraft flight over the Himalayas with Nobel-prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, he was shown a massive brown cloud of black carbon and toxins, the result of burning fuels and biomass in Asia.
Preliminary findings included changing the rainfall patterns of the monsoon up to accelerating the melt of glaciers as a result of the soot darkening the ice. We launched the findings at a big press conference in London and the story traveled around the globe. But UNEP was soon accused of blaming poor countries for climate change. The Government of India, hosting the next UN climate conference, accused the UN of being in the pocket of the Americans. I was also personally under fire for writing a rather racy press release.
Later, the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a peer-reviewed assessment of the brown cloud and it confirmed UNEP’s preliminary findings. “Finally, the science has caught up with your press release,” he mused. That was typical Klaus Toepfer, if he liked your work, he would always have your back.
Klaus was also a defender of human rights. When the Green Belt Movement activist and Wangari Maathai was in danger of being “accidented” by Kenya President Daniel Arap Moi, Klaus gave her sanctuary in the UNEP campus. He could not contain his excitement when she won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004 and the powerful message it sent on environment and security to the world. Without Klaus, she may not have been alive to receive it.
He had some conservative tendencies, insisting on his proper title of Professor Dr. Toepfer and visibly twitching when a US State Department voice exclaimed: “Great to see ya, Klaus.” On his last day at UNEP, he took two people out to dinner. Nick Nuttall and Julia Crause, his then super assistant who today works at KFW. After the main course, he poured us all a good glass of dry white wine and said: “You can now call me Klaus.” And it has been Klaus ever since and always will be. Nick Nuttall
The author was UNEP spokesperson and speechwriter from 2001 to 2013 and head of the communications department of the UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC) from 2014 to 2018.
Timm Kehler – Chairman, Zukunft Gas GmbH
He has been the voice of the German gas industry for many years: Since 2009 as a board member of “Erdgas mobil,” then since 2015 at the lobby association “Zukunft Erdgas,” which was renamed “Zukunft Gas” in 2021 and has since officially pursued the goal of switching from fossil gas to biogas and hydrogen. The association was very successful in shifting Germany’s energy supply towards natural gas mainly imported from Russia. Zukunft Gas successfully lobbied for hydrogen-powered heating systems to be included as an option in the Building Energy Act. More than 130 companies from the gas and hydrogen industry are part of the association; numerous municipal utilities have left in recent years following a campaign by the organization Lobbycontrol.
Fatih Birol – Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA)
As Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Birol promotes the global energy transition. He played a key role in the organization’s change of course from securing western oil supplies to expanding renewables and achieving global climate targets. Birol has been with the IEA since the mid-1990s and has led the organization since 2015. His statements and IEA reports on peak oil are a cause for concern for OPEC. Birol is a die-hard soccer fan and an honorary member of Galatasaray Istanbul (Click here for our heads article).
Carsten Körnig – Managing Director, German Solar Industry Association
He is not only one of the most influential energy lobbyists in Berlin, but also one of the most long-standing: Carsten Körnig has been representing the solar industry in Berlin since 1997 – initially as co-founder and managing director of the “Business Association Solar Industry,” and since 2006 and to this day as managing director of the German Solar Industry Association, with over 1,000 member companies. Körnig has been involved in the German Renewables Energy Act from the first draft to the most recent amendment and has ensured that the solar industry in Germany has become a powerful sector thanks to good cross-party connections. However, the attempt to secure production capacities in Germany through the so-called resilience bonus recently failed.
Kai Niebert – President, Deutscher Naturschutzring
Niebert has been President of the Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR), the umbrella organization of German environmental associations, since 2015. In this role and as an advisor on many other committees, the Professor of Science Education and Sustainability at the University of Zurich maintains close relations with key players in politics, society and business. He sits or has sat on the Sustainability Council, the Future Commission for Agriculture, the Commission on the Coal Phase-out, the Alliance for Transformation, the EU High Level Group in Financing Sustainability Transition and the Alliance for Affordable Housing, among others. In a study, Niebert also showed that climate education in schools does not meet the needs of society.
Kerstin Andreae – Managing Director, BDEW German Association of Energy and Water Industries
Kerstin Andreae is committed to both an affordable, sustainable energy system and security of supply at the same time. Her association, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), represents more than 2,000 members, including many municipal utilities and waterworks. One of the biggest challenges the association currently faces is shaping the heating transition. Andreae previously sat in the German Bundestag for the Green Party from 2002 and was deputy chair of the Green parliamentary group from 2012 to 2018. She has been Chairwoman of BDEW since 2019 and was re-elected for another five years at the beginning of the year.
Sabine Nallinger – Chairwoman, German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy
As Chairwoman of the German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy, Sabine Nallinger is accelerating the transformation of the German economy towards net zero and wants to show that climate action can be a successful business model. She advocates the right political, legal and social framework conditions and praises Joe Biden’s green industrial policy (see our heads article). The German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy was founded by CEOs, managing directors and family entrepreneurs under the name Stiftung 2° and uses a transformation tracker, for example, to monitor the climate action promises made in the German government coalition agreement.
Matthias Belitz – Executive Director Sustainability, Energy and Climate Policy, German Chemical Industry Association
In March 2024, Matthias Belitz took over the sustainability, energy and climate policy department at the German Chemical Industry Association from his predecessor Jörg Rothermel. The business administration graduate, who previously spent 16 years at BASF, has the big task of driving forward and implementing the transformation in one of the most energy-intensive industries. After all, the chemical industry wants to be climate-neutral by 2050.
Simone Peter – President, German Renewable Energy Federation e. V. (BEE)
Despite its commitment, Germany is still a long way from expanding renewables fast enough, says Simone Peter. To speed this up, she is campaigning for flexibility in the electricity market, among other things. Peter’s commitment to the energy transition goes back a long way: As a teenager, she protested against the construction of the French nuclear power plant in Cattenom near the German border, and she joined the Green Party. In 2009, the doctor of microbiology then became the Environment Minister of her home state, Saarland. From 2013 to 2018, she was Federal Chairwoman of the Green Party, before becoming President of the BEE.
Holger Lösch – Member of the Executive Board, Federation of German Industries (BDI)
Holger Lösch refused to be labeled an evil lobbyist. Nor does he want his contribution as an industry representative in the negotiations on the German coal phase-out in the so-called Coal Commission to be misunderstood as a commitment to extending coal-fired power generation. And indeed: Lösch knows how climate action works. He once told Table.Briefings that trying to reconcile economic and climate issues was a social task to which he wanted to make a contribution. However, he is also considered a harsh critic of overambitious climate policy. For example, he considers the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism CBAM to be excessive. But unlike other industry representatives, Lösch considers the German climate targets for 2030 and 2045 to be realistic if action is taken quickly enough.
Corinna Enders – Chairperson of the Management Board, German Energy Agency (dena)
Over the next three years, Corinna Enders is tasked with making the state-owned dena and its 550 employees fit for the “huge challenge of restructuring our entire prosperity model and ensuring widespread acceptance of it,” she said upon taking office. She is also expected to get the agency out of the negative headlines after debates surrounding the appointment of her predecessor. Enders previously worked in the Ministry of the Environment and has been Managing Director of the non-profit “Zukunft-Umwelt-Gesellschaft” (ZUG), a federal company that manages projects and funding programs relating to the environment, climate and nature, since 2018. She shares the management of dena with Kristina Haverkamp.
The air is getting thicker and thicker at the conference in Bonn. SB60 is supposed to end on Thursday and so far not much progress has been made, people are getting nervous. The debate about money is deadlocked without any vision, and many other issues are stalled. There are other problems, too: Activists and delegations complain that Germany is not issuing visas for the conference fast enough. Furthermore, the next COP host, Azerbaijan, is detaining critical journalists in the country. As everyone is waiting for the results from Bonn, our Climate.Table team in Bonn will be publishing a Table.Special with a summary after the conclusion of the conference.
Others are also getting nervous. The German government coalition is on a mission impossible: saving money while still raising six billion euros for international climate financing. Today, we write about the tricks for “creative budget management.” We also report on ideas to make Germany’s domestic climate policy fairer, which has so far been socially imbalanced. That and much more in today’s issue.
At the UN interim conference SB60 in Bonn, host country Germany has come under criticism due to visa issues. One accusation is mainly raised by countries and activists from the Global South: Activists and important delegation members have received their visas too late or not at all. This mostly affects people from African and South-East Asian countries, such as Senegal, Morocco, Uganda, the Philippines and Liberia, including many young members of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition and Fridays for Future Africa.
According to Table.Briefings information, the UN Climate Change Secretariat is aware of the problems. When asked, the Federal Foreign Office stated that it was important for the German government to ensure that all accredited conference participants were present at the negotiations. The legal requirements for issuing visas are based on the Schengen area’s rules. Delayed visas are usually the result of conference participants submitting their applications at too short notice.
Laura Schäfer, Head of International Climate Policy at the NGO Germanwatch, said that some delegates had arrived in Bonn so late that negotiations on their issues had already ended. “This means that the countries they should have represented were not represented on these issues in Bonn.”
A delegate from an African country who wished to remain anonymous confirmed the problems to Table.Briefings. She complained that the German embassy in her home country had failed to provide information on the Internet about the documents required to obtain a visa, meaning she had to come in person. She was only received days later. By the time she had all the necessary information and documents, the embassy had told her she was too late. “As a result, I didn’t even apply.” She only managed to get a visa and travel thanks to personal contacts.
The climate adaptation expert only arrived in Bonn halfway through the conference. “This meant that my country’s delegation could not be present in all rooms. It couldn’t negotiate everywhere, and we missed out on important information.”
One delegate from the group of the least developed countries said that she had not received a visa and could not attend the conference. She said she had provided all the necessary documents to the embassy. “This is particularly worrying for delegates from LDCs, which are disproportionately affected by climate change.”
Civil society campaigns, for example, on climate financing, were also quieter due to the lack of activists, says Hamira Kobusingye, Fridays for Future coordinator from Uganda: “If more people were here, there would be more diverse voices, and if negotiators from all countries were represented here, the negotiations would probably be more balanced.”
The reasons for the problems are manifold. Documents available to Table.Briefings explain the refusal of visas with, among other things, “well-founded doubts about the intention to leave the territory of the member states before the visa expires,” the lack of proof of sufficient financial means, and – despite having UN accreditation – “no credible” information “about the purpose and conditions of the planned stay.” In one case, an appointment at the embassy was not possible because it was closed for an extended period due to a power outage.
It is said that young activists, in particular, often have problems providing the required proof of financing their stay. The time it takes to process visa applications also seems problematic. Ina Maria Shikongo, an activist from Namibia, says that in order to obtain a visa, one must apply for a personal appointment at the embassy around three months in advance. However, the Climate Secretariat does not issue accreditation for the Bonn interim summits until around May. By the time the appointments were made at the embassy, the funding for the trip had been secured, and the necessary documents had been collected, “the SB conference is already over.“
Kobusingye also says that the issuing process is too slow. “The SBs are held every year. The embassies must be prepared for this” and process the applications faster. Kobusingye explains that the embassy in Uganda took 15 days to process her application, but she could only submit her documents 12 days before her planned departure “because I received my UN accreditation very late.” Although she paid an extra fee for a faster process and submitted complete documents, other applications were processed faster. Kobusingye had to postpone her flight and also arrived in Bonn a few days late.
In the run-up to the final debate in Bonn, some NGOs are calling for the visa process for people with UN accreditation to be fast-tracked and more closely linked to the accreditation process of the Climate Secretariat. Then, for instance, documents already checked by the UN Climate Secretariat during the accreditation process would not have to be included again with the visa application. Other demands call for a more transparent and less expensive process, making it easier for people from the Global South to attend the UN Interim Conference in Bonn.
The Federal Foreign Office states that accreditation for the UN Interim Conference cannot replace the actual examination of the visa application. The respective countries’ diplomatic missions must examine each case to ensure that the legal conditions for a Schengen visa are met.
The German coalition government is in a tight spot when it comes to financing international climate action: On the one hand, the national budget for 2025 is 25 to 30 billion euros short. On the other hand, it wants to support international climate action. It has also publicly and repeatedly pledged to spend at least six billion euros annually on this from 2025. This has led to discussions in political Berlin about a tempting alternative: “creative accounting” for climate finances.
Germany’s uncertain financial promise comes in 2024 of all years when the UN states at COP29 in Baku have to decide on a new financing target (NCQG) for 2025. Germany has been one of the most important and reliable donors to date and one of the loudest advocates of more financial commitment from developed countries – but also from emerging economies such as China, Korea, Singapore and the oil states. After all, the developed countries club OECD has now officially certified that the industrialized countries have reached and exceeded the promised 100 billion US dollars for climate aid for the first time in 2022 with 116 billion for poor countries.
Of all years, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s repeated promise to remain a reliable climate financing partner with the six billion euros from public funds falls in the austerity budget for the 2025 election year. The situation is dire. If the national budget falls through, the German government coalition is on the brink of collapse. The players are correspondingly nervous about financial matters. In the Table.Media podcast, SPD Development Minister Svenja Schulze was pessimistic: It will be “very, very difficult to keep the promises with significantly less money.”
The current stipulations of the Ministry of Finance cut deep into the budgets of the relevant ministries. Finance Minister Christian Lindner has already announced plans to slash the budget for development aid, which he called “very high.”
This would affect the ministry that is by far the most important for international climate financing: 86 percent of all German climate aid comes from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). In the 2022 budget, the last year for comparison due to the delayed reporting of climate funds, around 5.5 billion euros of the 12.2 billion budget was counted as climate aid. In the 2025 budget, BMZ funds are projected to fall to 9.9 billion. If climate funds were cut proportionately, Schulze’s ministry would only have around four billion available for climate aid.
Outside the BMZ, the “International Climate Initiative” (IKI) is the most important instrument. Since 2008, Germany has used it to fund 950 climate projects in around 150 countries with over six billion euros. Currently, these are mainly initiatives in 14 priority countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Colombia and Mexico. According to the BMWK, a total of 735 million was earmarked for this in the 2024 budget, comprised of:
The IKI is Germany’s largest fund for projects exclusively intended to promote international climate action. BMZ projects often also focus on development or poverty reduction, although the boundaries between climate and biodiversity protection have blurred in recent years. In November 2023, the IKI was realigned for its 15th anniversary to be more efficient.
Six months later, the much-praised IKI is under great pressure: Government circles have confirmed plans to make significant cuts to the IKI in the budget battle. Because the budgets of other departments, such as the Foreign Ministry, are also being axed, it is clear that the potential shortfall of around 1.5 billion euros from a BMZ austerity budget cannot be offset by the other ministries.
The government has limited alternatives: It could save the money elsewhere or increase its debt – although both are almost impossible to implement politically. It could openly admit that the money is not available despite its promises – thus seriously damaging the climate finance debate as one of the biggest global donors. This issue is currently central to the SB60 negotiations in Bonn, and such news would be toxic for trust between the UN states.
The alternative: The government could take one-off or multi-year “creative measures” in the budget with real or perceived effects, as the UK has recently done. It could:
The charm of all these “creative ideas” is that they would nominally lighten the 2025 budget and thus help secure the current government’s final budget for the time being. This would also spare Germany international criticism, as other countries are also often very creative when it comes to defining their climate aid.
And above all, any potential miscalculations in international climate financing would not officially surface until a year after the next parliamentary elections: The EU does not expect the first report on these dates before September 30, 2026.
Climate policy that is not socially just will not find acceptance. This theory, long voiced by social and environmental organizations, has been given new urgency by the recent results of the European elections. This Thursday, “Zukunft KlimaSozial,” a new think tank, will be launched. It has set itself the goal of combining climate and social policy and developing concepts for a socially just climate policy.
The new institute was founded by Brigitte Knopf, Deputy Chairwoman of the German government’s Expert Council for Climate Issues and, until the end of last year, Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute in Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). The initial team of seven also includes Ines Verspohl, former head of the social policy department at the VdK social association, Astrid Schaffert, who once co-founded the globalization-critical network Attac and who was most recently responsible for the climate policy of the Caritas association, and Marie Zeller. She previously worked for the Expert Council and the MCC. Their work is funded by the European Climate Foundation.
Zukunft KlimaSozial outlines the principles of its future activities in a detailed position paper, which will be published this Thursday and is available to Table.Briefings in advance. In it, the authors describe four pillars that they believe are necessary for a socially just transformation:
It is important to the initiators of “Zukunft KlimaSozial” that the debate is not – as is often the case – narrowed down to climate money and its exact form. “It’s part of the solution, but not the most important one,” said Verspohl. “We need to tackle the big blocks instead of engaging in shadow boxing.” An important prerequisite for implementing the demands is a better database, for example, on assets, the renovation status of housing, and public transport connections.
And what will happen to the costs and programs that have so far been paid for with the revenue from the carbon price? For example, covering the EEG levy, subsidies for clean heating systems and charging stations or the industry’s switch to hydrogen once the climate money is introduced? Knopf says that other financing options would have to be found for them. “We won’t be able to pay for the transformation from the carbon price alone.”
Another alliance is also focusing on strengthening the link between social and climate policy: Last week, Climate Alliance Germany, Diakonie and the National Poverty Conference published a joint demands paper. “There is a lack of a justice perspective in climate policy,” says Daniel Eggstein, Climate Policy and Social Justice Officer at Germany’s Civil Society Alliance for Climate Justice, in an interview with Table.Briefings.
In their paper, the organizations call for measures to “fight poverty and the climate crisis together.” These include
“However, climate money can only be one component of compensation,” says Eggstein. He believes that measures that support the switch to climate-neutral technologies are just as important. Eggstein is also certain that a socially just transformation “cannot be achieved with an austerity budget.” He is also aware that the revenue from the carbon price alone would not be enough to achieve this. Instead, it would require either a reform of the debt cap or a special fund. Furthermore, in times of challenges for society as a whole, the focus should also be on fair distribution and people with high wealth or inheritances should be taxed more heavily, he says.
Many in Germany remember Klaus Toepfer as the environment minister who swam the Rhine to prove it was clean. But for others around the world mourning his death, he will be remembered for his unique contribution to international environmental policy.
From 1998 to 2005, Klaus was Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a rescue mission after UNEP’s European funders threatened to close it down without a European leader in the late 1990s. Klaus seized the opportunity and used his tremendous energy, diplomatic skills, experience and intellect to travel across the globe to restore UNEP’s relevance. This was no easy task, as many developing countries saw environmental protection as a luxury of rich countries, while their mission was to lift people out of poverty.
From 1998 to 2005, Klaus served as Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a rescue mission after UNEP’s European donors in the late 1990s threatened to shut it down without a European head. Klaus seized the opportunity and deployed his formidable energy, diplomatic skills, experience and intellect to crisscross the globe to restore UNEP’s relevance. His was no easy task, with many developing countries viewing the environment as a rich country’s luxury when their task was to lift people out of poverty.
Shortly after I joined as Klaus’s press officer and speechwriter, we sat over a glass of wine pondering a slogan that would capture his vision. He was clear that a healthy environment was a prerequisite for economic development and human dignity. And so, UNEP-Environment for Development, was born. “So many people are against things, we have to stand for something,” he reflected.
Klaus was always keen for action and felt he needed to make positive change without waiting around for the blessing of often reluctant UN member states. As a result of the Balkan war he established a post conflict assessment unit. He was clear that the first priority after the conflict was humanitarian, but shortly afterward, the environmental services of a nation needed to be healed if peace and prosperity were to be restored.
Klaus was also inquisitive and passionately believed that science was the North Star to guide environmental policy. In a light aircraft flight over the Himalayas with Nobel-prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, he was shown a massive brown cloud of black carbon and toxins, the result of burning fuels and biomass in Asia.
Preliminary findings included changing the rainfall patterns of the monsoon up to accelerating the melt of glaciers as a result of the soot darkening the ice. We launched the findings at a big press conference in London and the story traveled around the globe. But UNEP was soon accused of blaming poor countries for climate change. The Government of India, hosting the next UN climate conference, accused the UN of being in the pocket of the Americans. I was also personally under fire for writing a rather racy press release.
Later, the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a peer-reviewed assessment of the brown cloud and it confirmed UNEP’s preliminary findings. “Finally, the science has caught up with your press release,” he mused. That was typical Klaus Toepfer, if he liked your work, he would always have your back.
Klaus was also a defender of human rights. When the Green Belt Movement activist and Wangari Maathai was in danger of being “accidented” by Kenya President Daniel Arap Moi, Klaus gave her sanctuary in the UNEP campus. He could not contain his excitement when she won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004 and the powerful message it sent on environment and security to the world. Without Klaus, she may not have been alive to receive it.
He had some conservative tendencies, insisting on his proper title of Professor Dr. Toepfer and visibly twitching when a US State Department voice exclaimed: “Great to see ya, Klaus.” On his last day at UNEP, he took two people out to dinner. Nick Nuttall and Julia Crause, his then super assistant who today works at KFW. After the main course, he poured us all a good glass of dry white wine and said: “You can now call me Klaus.” And it has been Klaus ever since and always will be. Nick Nuttall
The author was UNEP spokesperson and speechwriter from 2001 to 2013 and head of the communications department of the UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC) from 2014 to 2018.
Timm Kehler – Chairman, Zukunft Gas GmbH
He has been the voice of the German gas industry for many years: Since 2009 as a board member of “Erdgas mobil,” then since 2015 at the lobby association “Zukunft Erdgas,” which was renamed “Zukunft Gas” in 2021 and has since officially pursued the goal of switching from fossil gas to biogas and hydrogen. The association was very successful in shifting Germany’s energy supply towards natural gas mainly imported from Russia. Zukunft Gas successfully lobbied for hydrogen-powered heating systems to be included as an option in the Building Energy Act. More than 130 companies from the gas and hydrogen industry are part of the association; numerous municipal utilities have left in recent years following a campaign by the organization Lobbycontrol.
Fatih Birol – Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA)
As Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Birol promotes the global energy transition. He played a key role in the organization’s change of course from securing western oil supplies to expanding renewables and achieving global climate targets. Birol has been with the IEA since the mid-1990s and has led the organization since 2015. His statements and IEA reports on peak oil are a cause for concern for OPEC. Birol is a die-hard soccer fan and an honorary member of Galatasaray Istanbul (Click here for our heads article).
Carsten Körnig – Managing Director, German Solar Industry Association
He is not only one of the most influential energy lobbyists in Berlin, but also one of the most long-standing: Carsten Körnig has been representing the solar industry in Berlin since 1997 – initially as co-founder and managing director of the “Business Association Solar Industry,” and since 2006 and to this day as managing director of the German Solar Industry Association, with over 1,000 member companies. Körnig has been involved in the German Renewables Energy Act from the first draft to the most recent amendment and has ensured that the solar industry in Germany has become a powerful sector thanks to good cross-party connections. However, the attempt to secure production capacities in Germany through the so-called resilience bonus recently failed.
Kai Niebert – President, Deutscher Naturschutzring
Niebert has been President of the Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR), the umbrella organization of German environmental associations, since 2015. In this role and as an advisor on many other committees, the Professor of Science Education and Sustainability at the University of Zurich maintains close relations with key players in politics, society and business. He sits or has sat on the Sustainability Council, the Future Commission for Agriculture, the Commission on the Coal Phase-out, the Alliance for Transformation, the EU High Level Group in Financing Sustainability Transition and the Alliance for Affordable Housing, among others. In a study, Niebert also showed that climate education in schools does not meet the needs of society.
Kerstin Andreae – Managing Director, BDEW German Association of Energy and Water Industries
Kerstin Andreae is committed to both an affordable, sustainable energy system and security of supply at the same time. Her association, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), represents more than 2,000 members, including many municipal utilities and waterworks. One of the biggest challenges the association currently faces is shaping the heating transition. Andreae previously sat in the German Bundestag for the Green Party from 2002 and was deputy chair of the Green parliamentary group from 2012 to 2018. She has been Chairwoman of BDEW since 2019 and was re-elected for another five years at the beginning of the year.
Sabine Nallinger – Chairwoman, German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy
As Chairwoman of the German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy, Sabine Nallinger is accelerating the transformation of the German economy towards net zero and wants to show that climate action can be a successful business model. She advocates the right political, legal and social framework conditions and praises Joe Biden’s green industrial policy (see our heads article). The German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy was founded by CEOs, managing directors and family entrepreneurs under the name Stiftung 2° and uses a transformation tracker, for example, to monitor the climate action promises made in the German government coalition agreement.
Matthias Belitz – Executive Director Sustainability, Energy and Climate Policy, German Chemical Industry Association
In March 2024, Matthias Belitz took over the sustainability, energy and climate policy department at the German Chemical Industry Association from his predecessor Jörg Rothermel. The business administration graduate, who previously spent 16 years at BASF, has the big task of driving forward and implementing the transformation in one of the most energy-intensive industries. After all, the chemical industry wants to be climate-neutral by 2050.
Simone Peter – President, German Renewable Energy Federation e. V. (BEE)
Despite its commitment, Germany is still a long way from expanding renewables fast enough, says Simone Peter. To speed this up, she is campaigning for flexibility in the electricity market, among other things. Peter’s commitment to the energy transition goes back a long way: As a teenager, she protested against the construction of the French nuclear power plant in Cattenom near the German border, and she joined the Green Party. In 2009, the doctor of microbiology then became the Environment Minister of her home state, Saarland. From 2013 to 2018, she was Federal Chairwoman of the Green Party, before becoming President of the BEE.
Holger Lösch – Member of the Executive Board, Federation of German Industries (BDI)
Holger Lösch refused to be labeled an evil lobbyist. Nor does he want his contribution as an industry representative in the negotiations on the German coal phase-out in the so-called Coal Commission to be misunderstood as a commitment to extending coal-fired power generation. And indeed: Lösch knows how climate action works. He once told Table.Briefings that trying to reconcile economic and climate issues was a social task to which he wanted to make a contribution. However, he is also considered a harsh critic of overambitious climate policy. For example, he considers the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism CBAM to be excessive. But unlike other industry representatives, Lösch considers the German climate targets for 2030 and 2045 to be realistic if action is taken quickly enough.
Corinna Enders – Chairperson of the Management Board, German Energy Agency (dena)
Over the next three years, Corinna Enders is tasked with making the state-owned dena and its 550 employees fit for the “huge challenge of restructuring our entire prosperity model and ensuring widespread acceptance of it,” she said upon taking office. She is also expected to get the agency out of the negative headlines after debates surrounding the appointment of her predecessor. Enders previously worked in the Ministry of the Environment and has been Managing Director of the non-profit “Zukunft-Umwelt-Gesellschaft” (ZUG), a federal company that manages projects and funding programs relating to the environment, climate and nature, since 2018. She shares the management of dena with Kristina Haverkamp.
