Climate policy – human protection or climate protection?

The climate movement has to sort up. The Greens are in the opposition, the fossil lobby officially took over power in the business department and the industrial agricultural economy in the Ministry of Agriculture. Klimaeugner now have more speaking time in the Bundestag for absurd stories. The climate protection is increasingly on the defensive and previously popular narrative cannot save it. Tales like that of the cognitive dissonance between knowledge and actions or the same vision, how beautiful and desirable a climate -neutral life in 2050 could be, only smile.

Recovery in environmental protection

A narrative comes quite fresh that has even made it into the world of coalitioners in the Bundestag. “Climate protection is nothing more than human protection,” on May 15, the SPD MP Esra Limbacher called into the plenum. It was particularly important to him in the first consultations on the new Ministry of the Environment to emphasize this. We would have to act so that the consequences of the climate crisis, like the flood of the century, would not be more frequent and more devastating, said the SPD’s parliamentarian and vice -leader leader.

The Greens in the Bundestag had already hit the same notification of the provision. Under the heading “Climate protection is human protection”, they praised the federal climate adaptation law that had recently come into force last year. In view of the consequences of extreme competitions, it should remedy the situation. That is why the Greens are committed to ensuring that climate adjustment is declared a joint task and the permanent financing is secured.

Green and the black and red coalition have a common goal, because with climate adaptation as human protection, the Union and the SPD can also do something. According to the coalition agreement, flood and coastal protection should accelerate, the climate adaptation strategy is to be implemented. Union and SPD also want to check the introduction of a joint task in this regard, so that the federal government can participate in the costs.

Nature and self -interest

The framing of human protection is not completely new. A book with the equivalent title “Climate protection is human protection” appeared as early as 2022. Most recently, the narrative was haunted by media and politics. It has the invaluable advantage to establish an immediate connection between the climate and humans. Why shouldn’t people like that? The most outstanding argument of climate -friendly human protection is as follows: nature – or optionally the climate – it doesn’t matter whether we save it or not save it. We take care of the climate, so to speak, out of pure self -interest, which is why climate protection always deals with human protection.

This conclusion is known to people who have long dealed with the protection of nature: In the end, it is not about saving the “nature” or the “environment”, but the meaning of protection is to maintain the natural livelihood of people. Because man, one wants to stay one, is part of nature in every respect. He would not have arisen outside of this, and it cannot exist without a human -friendly environment. It is no coincidence in Article 20a of the Basic Law: “The state also protects the natural livelihoods and animals in responsibility for future generations.”

Wilderness is more diverse, more resilient and sustainable than any artificially created world.

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Consistent conservationists also understand how to protect nature for its own sake and not only because it is “useful” to be “useful”, can be used to use its resources or nature should regenerate for later use. Protection means taking a consistently non -thermal view. Wilderness is more diverse, more resilient and sustainable than any artificially created world. This also applies analogously to climate protection. The preservation of nature, its diversity and the increase in your biomass are – in addition to the indispensable CO₂-Reduction -ultimately the most important measures for climate protection. It is no coincidence that climate scientists speak of the loss of biodiversity is currently an even greater problem than climate change. Because with the loss of species, resilience and versatility are irretrievably lost to climate change – and there is no substitute.

Nature is also the largest and most efficient CO₂-Senke that will be available to us in the future. If you want to do human protection, you have to protect people from themselves, especially from themselves, to only measure the wealth of nature according to usefulness and to transform into private added value. Consistent climate protection therefore does not do without a consistent “no”: this raw material remains in the soil, this forest is not mixed, fishing and cruise ships have lost nothing in this sea area, this or that practice is not sustainable.

Protection of the consumption of the rich?

However, if we reduce climate protection to “human protection”, the question also arises: is the super consumption of the rich under protection? For example, is this also put under mass tourism that exploits the nature of the global south? Isn’t human protection implies with a green garnished “keep it up”?

Not all people have the same responsibility for the climate. For a long time and especially in the past 100 to 200 years, people in the global north have been more curse than blessings for the earth – and thus also curse for other people, writes Gudrun Lux, green local politician, author and Catholic. She also writes under the title “Climate protection is human protection” – but she differentiates: Whoever is poor is particularly vulnerable, and therefore Lux warns that we should not let the social disaster associated with the climate catastrophe.

The climate researcher and philosopher Friederike Otto also consistently includes the social perspective in climate as human protection. The climate goal of a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius Warming is a social goal for you, Otto said in an interview a year ago. It is important to combat climate change together with other problems, especially with global extreme inequality. The more poor people remained alone with the consequences of climate change, the more inequality and thus the instability of society. “Such a society is bad for everyone,” emphasized Otto.

Incidentally, a recognized means for climate social human protection is the climate field. SPD politician Limbacher also saw it that way-before the Bundestag election. The rising CO meet₂-Prize in general for approval that he should not overwhelm private households, Limbacher wrote at the time when asked about the day of the climate and climate. “That is why a social climate field is needed promptly,” concluded the SPD politician. For him, the climate field is one of the three important measures that he wants to implement as a member of the Bundestag, so it is still on his website. If Limbacher would take his speech seriously about human protection, wouldn’t he have been able to announce in mid -May – no: have to – that his faction brought an application to a social climate field promptly? That would be a real step to protect the climate and people beyond all narratives.