Klimaveränderung; Umweltabkommen; Emissionshandel; Außenpolitik; EU-Staaten; OPEC-Staaten

Jürgen Chrobog

English

Research Papers in Economics

Welcome Address by
JÜRGEN CHROBOG
Former State Secretary,
Chairman of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the BMW Foundation Herbert
Quandt, I welcome you most cordially to the 8th
Munich Economic Summit in the Bavarian capital!
Once again this year, we have succeeded in bring-
ing together experts, managers, politicians and
media representatives from the EU27 and other
countries for this economic conference in Munich.
Today’s meeting is attended by more than 160 par-
ticipants from twenty countries. Together with
Professor Hans-Werner Sinn, our co-organizer
from the CESifo Group Munich,I thank you all for
coming! 
This year,our agenda focuses on a topic that increas-
ingly runs the risk of being sidelined – energy and
climate policy.The public debate is dominated by the
global economic crisis that is tackled internationally
with stimulus programs,rescue packages and a whirl-
wind of summit diplomacy.Governments around the
world invest billions in systemically relevant banks
and companies – but no similarly high investments
are made in the future of the global climate, such as
compensation payments by industrial countries to
cooperative developing countries or massive funding
for environmental technologies. Yet this year, on
December 7 in Copenhagen, the 190 participating
states will set the course for a new global climate
treaty that is to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
The European Union leads the way with ambitious
climate goals: by 2020, it wants to reduce both its
greenhouse gas emissions and its energy consump-
tion by 20 percent and get 20 percent of its energy
from renewable energies. In view of the coming
World Climate Conference in Copenhagen, the EU
even urges an emissions reduction of 30 percent –
provided other industrial nations go along.This is an
ambitious program to limit the dangerous rise in
global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius – even if sci-
entists actually call for emissions reduction of 80 per-
cent to stop the climate change.
In spite of – or actually because of – the current dra-
matic financial and economic crisis, it would be dis-
astrous to put climate protection on the backburner,
as is demanded by some politicians, for example in
Prague and Rome. This would mean that we will
destroy the opportunities of future generations in
order to maintain and increase our prosperity in the
industrial nations today. Let me quote the founding
director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber: “politically,
the post-war era ended with the fall of the wall in
1989, socio-economically it ended with the current
crash. The challenge is now to completely re-pro-
gram the global economy”.
There is no contradiction between economic growth
on the one hand and an ambitious climate policy on
the other. On the contrary, the German and
European dual strategy of increasing both energy
efficiency and expanding renewable energies
through making the necessary investments in energy
research and environmental technologies will gener-
ate sustainable economic and job growth. This way,
we can get the European economy into shape for the
global competition for scarce resources.
Growth and environmental sustainability do not
have to be mutually exclusive. Already today, more
than 220,000 people in Germany are active in the
field of renewable energies.Already today,Germany
enjoys a leading position when it comes to the tech-
nology and export of wind power and photovoltaic.
If one adds to this the employment potential for
engineers, but also skilled laborers that are required
to optimize the efficiency of power plants, machines
or vehicles, it further becomes clear that in order to
remain competitive, Germany and Europe have to
make use of the economic opportunities provided by
climate protection and play a leading role in the key
markets of the future – energy and resource produc-
tivity as well as renewable energies. In this way, mil-
CESifo Forum 3/2009 6
IntroductionCESifo Forum 3/2009 7
Introduction
lions of jobs could be created all over the world. I
know that there will be objections to this assump-
tion.What is needed is the close cooperation of gov-
ernments, businesses and the scientific community.
The World Business Summit on Climate Change in
Copenhagen last weekend is the beginning of a dia-
logue long overdue.
The United States, too, under the new Obama
administration has recognized the economic oppor-
tunities of an active climate policy and initiated a
change in climate policy.This is made especially clear
by the appointment of Nobel Prize winner Steven
Chu as the US Secretary of Energy. With the so-
called ‘Green New Deal’, the American president
has proposed an ecologically-oriented stimulus pro-
gram where the government makes high, job-creat-
ing investments in renewable technologies. One ele-
ment of this program is the introduction of an emis-
sions trading system aimed at drastically reducing
carbon dioxide emissions across the country. Even
though the most recent proposals to limit US car
emissions by 2016 would just meet the current
German average of 160 g/km and thus lag far behind
the targets of the European Commission,the United
States has returned with this program to the global
stage as an actor in climate policy.
As for the future of the global climate, much will
depend on whether Europe and the United States
will be able to form a transatlantic climate alliance
and together assume a leading role. Only then will it
be possible to push through climate targets that go
beyond merely stabilizing the status quo. However,
given the progress of the climate negotiations so far,
we should not put too high hopes on the world cli-
mate conference in Copenhagen: Even moderate
emissions reduction targets such as the 5 percent
proposed by the Kyoto Protocol do not find much
favor with emerging economic powers such as
Russia, China or India, who either want to continue
their unfettered economic development or have
vested interests in an increasing global consumption
of their fossil energy resources.
But today’s and tomorrow’s Munich Economic
Summit will not just deal with the question of what
is the right climate and energy policy on the road to
Copenhagen; it will also discuss technological devel-
opments to fight global warming, such as the captur-
ing and storing of carbon dioxide,which so far do not
(yet) offer viable solutions on a large scale. In addi-
tion, we will discuss the issue of whether a global
emissions trading system can ensure a shift of global
energy consumption away from coal and oil to
renewable energies.
I am particularly delighted to welcome Mr. Mo-
hamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, the Minister of Energy
from Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates, an
OPEC country, is aware that it faces the same envi-
ronmental challenges we do. The planning of
Masdar,the first zero carbon and zero waste city,sets
standards for sustainable development.Thus the title
originally entertained for one panel of this summit,
‘Kyoto vs. OPEC’, would have been only partially
correct.This relationship, too, ought to be character-
ized by cooperation rather than confrontation.
I wish us all a good conference with inspiring talks
and productive discussions. Together with Professor
Sinn,President of the CESifo Group,I now have the
pleasure of officially opening the 8th Munich
Economic Summit.

Welcome Address by Jürgen Chrobog

http://www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/portal/DocBase_Content/ZS/ZS-CESifo_Forum/zs-for-2009/zs-for-2009-3/forum3-09-intro2.pdf

Welcome Address by Jürgen Chrobog

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