„People just had no idea what was coming. The poor and simple people were actually the most reasonable; They immediately considered the war to be a misfortune, while those who were better off couldn’t stop for joy, although they in particular could have realized the consequences much sooner.” Erich Maria Remarque wrote these lines in 1928 about the First World War in his novel ” Nothing new in the West”. Now a new war has begun in the East, and yet it is amazing how nearly a century later the people have not changed at all.
Because even in this war there are poor and simple people for whom the war is a misfortune and who are now crowding together in tents to flee. And in this war, too, there are those who are better off and are so happy they can’t stop. It’s the industries that have been struggling lately because they were supposed to change in a direction they didn’t like. They should become more sustainable and climate-friendly, because it can no longer be denied that there is no other way if we want to live (or survive) on a habitable planet. But now there is a war, and the war undermines everything.
Oil and gas production outside of Russia must now be ramped up, the fossil industry is demanding. Because Europe is massively dependent on Putin’s drip: around 40 percent of the natural gas burned in Europe comes from Russia. Instead of freeing itself from this dependency and expanding renewable energies on its own land, Europe bought more and more Russian gas as it turned away from nuclear and coal-fired power. How fatal it is to make oneself geopolitically dependent on an autocrat who cannot be trusted, and with a resource that is also not carbon neutral, is now being shown. And the fossil industry is rejoicing. Incidentally, it was to a large extent what made the Russian invasion of Ukraine possible in the first place: Around forty percent of the Russian state budget is fed by oil and gas production – which Western oil companies such as British Petroleum and ExxonMobil supported with investments.
Climate Council predicts catastrophes worldwide
But the agricultural industry is now also sensing the right moment, because war is raging and food security is at stake. Reduced use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers, a change towards ecological cultivation of land – measures that had all been decided in the farm-to-fork strategy of the EU – the German farmers’ association, for example, demanded that this should come to an end. “Can we still afford to shut down areas?” asked Deputy Secretary General Udo Hemmerling.
The truth is: we cannot afford to turn back efforts to protect the environment and climate in the slightest. Something may have gone under, but a few days ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presented the second part of its sixth status report on the consequences of climate change for people and nature. He predicts catastrophes worldwide, including for Germany: more flooding, heavy rain with the risk of flash floods, two million people in coastal flood areas, life-threatening heat waves (around 30 percent of heat deaths in Germany between 1991 and 2018 were already attributable to climate change) and economic shocks .
„There is only a limited period of time in which successful action can be taken,” said IPCC member Hans-Otto Pörtner. And that limited period is now. Climate change does not stop in the face of war – neither should climate protection.