Petersberg climate dialogue III
Background
The third Petersberg Climate Dialogue entitled Matching Ambition with Action will take place in Berlin. Co-chairs Germany and Qatar (Presidency of the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit in Doha) invited ministers from 35 countries representing the various groups at international climate negotiations.
This meeting of ministers several months before the UN climate negotiations in Doha in winter of this year will provide a realistic picture and a political development path for the conference in Doha and beyond.
The focus of this year's conference will be on
• the ambition gap between the targets set so far and what actually needs to be done to meet the 2°C target;
• transformation to a low-emission economy as a strategy for modernisation and growth;
• the new climate treaty to be negotiated by 2015 and implemented from 2020.
Adaptation to climate change
On 17 December 2008 the Federal Cabinet adopted the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change. This creates a framework for adapting to the impacts of climate change in Germany. It primarily describes the contribution of the Federation, thus acting as a guide for other actors. The strategy lays the foundation for a medium-term, step-by-step process undertaken in cooperation with the federal Länder and other civil groups and aimed at assessing the risks of climate change, identifying the possible need for action, defining appropriate goals and developing and implementing options for adaptation measures.
Modern climate policy is based on two pillars: avoidance of greenhouse gases and adaptation to those consequences of climate change which are already unavoidable.
The Petersberg Climate Dialogue began life in Copenhagen as a personal initiative of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and has since been used as a forum to build bridges in international climate negotiations. In particular it aims to bridge the gap between implementation and negotiation so that climate negotiations can be backed and supported by experience gained in the implementation of climate policy measures.