Amid the high temperatures in Germany, calls are multiplying for heat protection to be included in the constitution as a joint task. "Heat protection remains a permanent task," the President of the German Association of Cities, Burkhard Jung, told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND, Tuesday editions). Heat protection and climate adaptation, he said, belong in the Basic Law. The social association VdK made a similar case.
"I think it is important to include climate adaptation and heat protection measures in the Basic Law, because that would help structurally underfunded municipalities with funding from the federal government and the states," Jung said. "That would then be a new joint task."
Climate protection and climate adaptation will remain a permanent issue in the years to come, the Association of Cities President predicted. "That is why it would be good to hold the federal government and the states to their obligations. And that is probably only possible through such an amendment to the Basic Law."
The social association VdK set out a similar demand in a new catalogue of measures. The federal government should anchor climate adaptation as a joint task in the Basic Law, states the paper, which is available to the RND.
"The federal government must shape the framework conditions in such a way that all people are effectively protected against heat," VdK President Verena Bentele demanded. This protection must be guaranteed for everyone, "regardless of their income or their housing situation, and in particular regardless of their already challenging state of health." What is needed now, she said, are "binding standards, reliable funding and clear responsibilities."
Bentele called, among other things, for public cooling rooms in municipalities. In addition, facilities such as care homes, schools or women's shelters would have to be adequately protected against heat. In order to reach particularly vulnerable people in a targeted way when heat warnings are issued, "data-protection-compliant, voluntary, municipal registers" should be introduced, she told the RND.
The VdK also points out that not everyone can afford to run fans and cooling devices, or to install awnings, external blinds or roller shutters. Policymakers must therefore take preventive action "and offer targeted subsidies to combat energy poverty in summer."
The Greens support the German Association of Cities' demand to anchor heat protection and climate adaptation in the Basic Law as joint tasks of the federal government and the states. This is one way of giving municipalities stronger support, party leader Felix Banaszak said on Tuesday on the RTL and ntv programme "Frühstart". "In that respect, I am certainly open to it."
"The federal government must live up to its responsibility to genuinely finance and enable climate adaptation," Banaszak went on to demand. However, such a constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag. In addition, the federal government would first have to recognise that there is a problem at all.
"That insight is not there so far," the Green Party leader criticised. During the heatwave in June, for example, Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) merely referred municipalities to the funds of the special assets for infrastructure and climate neutrality. Those municipalities, however, are well aware "that this will not be enough."
The German Caritas Association also came out in favour of anchoring climate protection and climate adaptation as tasks in the social codes as well. Both would have to be recognised as objectives and as part of a comprehensive concept of cost-effectiveness. Otherwise, there is reason to fear that urgently needed climate protection and climate adaptation measures would be rejected by the cost-bearing institutions and consequently could not be implemented, Caritas President Eva Welskop-Defaa warned.
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