Cli­mate pro­tec­tion: What we want to and are able to contribute

Nev­er-end­ing hot sum­mers, tor­ren­tial rain­fall and unleashed storms: cli­mate change has long been evi­dent in Ger­many too. The cli­mat­ic changes are fol­lowed by water short­ages, crop fail­ures and ris­ing com­mod­i­ty prices. The gap between rich and poor is widen­ing in the indus­tri­al­ized countries.

And in emerg­ing and devel­op­ing coun­tries, famines, bit­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion strug­gles and mas­sive refugee move­ments are the con­se­quence. Human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ters around the globe and cli­mate-induced migra­tion on a pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­in­able scale will also become a heavy bur­den for demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tems in the West­ern world in the com­ing years.

The cli­mate cri­sis is thus threat­en­ing to become the main cause of the great­est social prob­lems of the future, which will also destroy the long-term, sus­tain­able impact of all social and non­prof­it activ­i­ties to date.

What can civ­il soci­ety contribute?

Agree­ments on cli­mate pro­tec­tion are usu­al­ly non-bind­ing and remain lip ser­vice. There­fore, pos­i­tive social sys­temic change, which is to be pro­mot­ed by polit­i­cal mea­sures, requires con­stant dri­ve for change from civ­il soci­ety. We can all make an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to cul­tur­al change, and best way to do so is together. 

Civ­il soci­ety is depen­dent on coop­er­a­tion and sup­port from foun­da­tions and busi­ness­es in its role as a social stake­hold­er. Whether it is indi­vid­ual ener­gy-sav­ing advice for pri­vate indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies, rais­ing aware­ness among chil­dren, teenagers and adults or polit­i­cal lob­by­ing, the range of projects in cli­mate pro­tec­tion is broad.