Germany's Social Democrat federal ministers have presented a joint action plan on heat protection, putting their coalition partner, the conservative Union bloc, under pressure. The programme, which was made available to the AFP news agency on Sunday, provides among other things for a national heat action plan, changes to building planning law and protection for employees against extreme temperatures.
The five SPD cabinet members also back the demand to enshrine a "joint task of climate adaptation and nature conservation" in Germany's Basic Law during the current parliamentary term, a step the Union has so far viewed with scepticism.
The four-page paper, first reported by the news magazine "Spiegel", was agreed by the Social Democrat ministers responsible for finance, the environment, social affairs and labour, construction, and development. "The consequences of climate change are affecting people worldwide, and are increasingly affecting us in Germany too," the document states. "At present above all heat, drought, forest fires and low water levels, but also heavy rainfall, flooding, water scarcity or exposure to UV radiation."
In the paper, the SPD cabinet members line up behind the demand recently put forward by Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) to amend the Basic Law for the sake of heat protection and to anchor a "joint task of climate adaptation and nature conservation" within it. Coalition partner the Union reacted sceptically to that proposal: it questioned the benefit of such a constitutional change and pointed to the difficulty of assembling the necessary majority in the Bundestag.
The SPD ministers have now countered that such an amendment to the Basic Law is a "precondition for the federal government to participate in financing municipal and state-level tasks and thereby contribute to climate adaptation and nature conservation measures on a long-term, legally secure and nationwide basis." They want the constitutional change to be implemented while the current parliamentary term is still running.
Until that point is reached, "the federal government's existing funding instruments" are to be bundled into an "immediate programme for climate adaptation and heat protection", the SPD paper says, so that they are better coordinated with one another, supplemented and equipped with the necessary financial resources.
The existing funding programme "Climate Adaptation in Social Institutions" is to support projects once again, for example in care homes for the elderly or in hospitals, through the "opening of a new funding window", so that such buildings do not heat up so severely or can be cooled down using appropriate technology.
In order to provide state support for larger alterations to building facades as well, the SPD ministers are calling for money from the special fund for infrastructure and climate protection to be made available for this purpose.
The SPD wants to manage the social consequences of climate change more effectively. To that end, there is to be a "heat action plan for the protection of health". Employees are to be shielded from heat by having the state advise employers. If production processes have to be interrupted because of heat as a result of disruptions to supply chains, the SPD paper states, cyclical short-time work allowance is in principle an option. Climate adaptation is to be anchored in building planning law.
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