Angela Merkel is a physicist. She knows all about efficiency – for example, when it comes to light. You won’t find any conventional light bulbs in her apartment in Berlin. Merkel recently gave the public an insight into her personal climate policy: she explained in an interview that she had screwed energy-saving bulbs into all the light fittings. Why? The principle on which the incandescent light bulb works has barely changed since it was invented by Thomas Alva Edison and it generates far more heat than light. That makes it extremely inefficient. Just 5% of the electricity is transformed into light, 95% is wasted.

Angela Merkel is Germany’s Federal Chancellor. She has also been Environment Minister. What is more she held that post in 1997, when the first global climate protection protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, the agreement in which the industrialized countries pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Germany’s head of government does not therefore need a ghostwriter to be able to appreciate the importance of energy efficiency. In the interview she knowledgeably presented the figures to the journalists, explaining what it would mean for the climate if everyone were to switch to modern energy-saving lamps that consume only 20% of the electricity incandescent light bulbs need to produce the same amount of light: “It would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5 million tonnes.” That result would be better than many expensive climate protection measures. And it would be a win-win situation: not only helping the climate, but also saving citizens’ money.

However, an energy policy that does justice to the increasingly urgent needs of climate protection is seldom as simple as replacing a light bulb with an energy-saving lamp. Nonetheless, Germany has taken up the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions like almost no other industrialized country. At the beginning of the 1990s it was one of the first countries to present a national timetable for reducing carbon dioxide. At that time, the Bundestag agreed to reduce the total carbon dioxide burden from industry, households and transport to 25% less than 1990 levels by 2005. That was a signal that made a major contribution to the success of the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro at which more than 150 countries agreed the World Climate Convention.

The Kyoto Protocol now regulates global climate protection. It entered into force in 2005 and is therefore binding under international law. As a result, Germany must reduce its output of a total of six important greenhouse gases (in addition to carbon dioxide, also substances such as methane and nitrous oxide) by 21% by 2012. That goal is in sight. By 2006, a reduction of 18% had already been achieved. Among the western industrialized countries, only the United Kingdom and Luxembourg can present similarly positive results. Nonetheless, the German government wants to – and must – undertake a renewed climate policy effort. The lion’s share of carbon dioxide reductions were already achieved during the 1990s – primarily as a result of the collapse of the GDR’s old, highly inefficient and CO2-intensive industry following German reunification. Since 1999, however, the reduction of greenhouse gases has practically come to a standstill. 2006 even saw a 0.5% rise in CO2 emissions as a result of economic growth, among other things.

Stronger efforts are therefore required – worldwide. The urgency of the situation became clear this spring when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented its new study on global climate development until 2100. Here are a few key points: warming of up to six degrees Celsius, which is more than the difference between an ice age and an interglacial period; sea level rise of up to 60 centimetres; the threat to hundred of millions of people in the river deltas of Southeast Asia; more intense weather extremes, such as hurricanes, floods and droughts; disappearance of mountain glaciers; the spread of infectious diseases like malaria. Although the findings only reaffirm the gloomy forecasts that were already made in the 2001 IPCC report, this time two things are different. Firstly, there are now practically no scientifically substantiated reservations that climate change is already occurring. And secondly, the public has become so aware of the issue as a result of dramatic weather changes, such as increasingly frequent “floods of the century” and heat waves, that the warnings are finally falling upon fertile soil. Suddenly, not only ordinary people are engaged in hefty debates about switching to energy-saving light bulbs, but politicians also seem to have genuinely recognized the seriousness of the situation. They have declared climate change the central challenge now facing humanity.

This has not failed to make a mark. Europe has been pressing ahead on this issue. Under the leadership of EU Council President Angela Merkel, the European Union has agreed important steps on the path towards a climate policy transformation. The EU Summit in March 2007 set a new climate protection goal for 2020. By then the 27 countries are to jointly cut their carbon dioxide emissions to 20% less than their 1990 levels. The EU even intends to achieve a cut of 30% if other industrialized nations – such as the USA, Australia and Japan – also set ambitious targets. It is planned to complete the next climate protection phase by increasing energy efficiency by 20% and raising the proportion of renewable energies to 20%. The EU energy formula is simple and straightforward: “3 times 20”.

Although it has not yet been decided which EU member states will have to bear which proportion of CO2 reductions, it nevertheless already seems clear that Germany, as the largest country in the Union, will once again have to play a pioneering role, as it did in the burden-sharing of the first Kyoto Protocol. The EU objective for 2012 that was agreed in 1997 – a CO2 reduction of 8% – can only be achieved if Germany fully fulfils its national target. Germany alone is responsible for three-quarters of the total EU reduction. Countries like Spain and Greece, which still needed to catch up economically, were even granted a CO2 increase. Germany has made a firm commitment. The Federal Government is planning a 40% CO2 reduction by 2020. In other words, the current emissions of roughly 880 million tonnes will have to fall by 270 million tonnes a year within that period. This target can only be met by an entire package of measures affecting all areas – from more efficient power stations, heat insulation and the promotion of renewable energies to measures to encourage more fuel-efficient vehicles, lower electricity consumption and ecologically sound heating systems. As a result, the Federal Government intends to introduce a new climate protection programme before the end of 2007. In a government statement, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that three billion euros of additional funds would be required for that purpose until 2010.

Another crucial factor will be the continuation of the German success story in renewable energies. The Renewable Energies Act (see box) came into force in 2000 and has created an incredible boom. A total of 12% of the electricity consumed in Germany is already generated from wind, solar and water power. The Federal Government is also planning a similar arrangement for the thermal energy sector.

It seems self-evident that climate protection cannot be achieved without cost and without changes in behaviour. However, since the publication of the Stern Report, the study of the financial and economic consequences of climate change by the former World Bank chief economist, it has become absolutely clear that doing little or nothing will be very much more expensive in the long run.