War is raging at the heart of Europe. For 21 months, Russia has brought fear and suffering on the people of Ukraine.

In the Middle East, Hamas is terrorising the people in Israel with a scarcely imaginable brutality.

The violence of the conflict is bringing incredible suffering on hundreds of thousands of innocent women, men and above all children in Gaza.

In these times of extreme distress, extreme violence, we might sometimes want to just pull the blanket over our heads. It’s come to feel almost normal, even understandable, that a different crisis all too often slips out of the newspaper headlines – a crisis that involves no sirens, no bombs, no missiles.

A crisis that sometimes seems silent but that strikes all the more mercilessly: the climate crisis.

This is a crisis whose destructive effects no-one on our plane t can escape – not in the North, not in the South, not in the East, not in the West.

That’s true for the farmer in the Sahel whose son is forced to join an extremist gang because her field is drying up and can no longer feed her family.

It’s true for the fisherman in Vanuatu whose village is being swallowed, quite literally, by rising sea levels.

But it’s also true for the mayors in Spain, Germany, China or Brazil whose towns and cities are suffering ever more extreme floods, heat and, in many cases, forest fires.

The climate crisis is exacerbating conflicts around the world. It’s threatening our prosperity, our developmental advances and, increasingly, our security and consequently our freedom. That’s what makes it so important that we discuss today, particularly in these geostrategically so turbulent times, what we actually want to achieve at the COP in Dubai.

I’d like to start, in spite of everything, with a positive message, namely that, in the eight years since the Paris Agreement – where many of you and many of us were in attendance – we have not only got the ball rolling but have made advances. We’ve moved from a trajectory taking us to a 4° rise in temperature to one of around 2.5°. We have more than 190 state parties to a joint agreement who have now all set themselves binding national climate targets. We have not only governments but also – and this is the important and perhaps most extraordinary thing – cities and communities, businesses and incredible numbers of people, civil society, all investing in protecting the climate – on a massive scale.

As a result, global investment in new renewables is higher today than that in fossil fuels. Sabine Nallinger has raised the point: there is no way back, in fact, because the “stranded investments” we’d have would throw the world’s entire economy into unimaginable disarray.

So the shift in mindsets has largely been achieved. Realistically though, as we all know here in this room, that is not enough. Alongside the shift in mindsets, we now need a gear shift for urgency. I’m therefore glad that so many experts are here who are laying out for us very clearly not only that things need to move faster but also how they can move faster.

To stay below our planet’s pain threshold of 1.5°, greenhouse gas emissions must drop to half of what they were in 2019 by 2030, according to the latest report from the IPCC.

That’s a good point at which to welcome Professor Jim Skea, the new Chair of the IPCC, who is with us via livestream.

I look forward to the new insights you will bring, and I thank you for your work. That gratitude, in fact, extends to the work of the entire IPCC – some of you are here in the room – which has been earning our gratitude for a very long time.

Regarding the COP, three key points are important to me. First, we need more ambition, because we’re in a race against time – and we’ve been far to slow to establish how and where exactly we are going to speed up.

We have the chance to do exactly that in Dubai with the Global Stocktake, a sort of worldwide climate MOT which will be conducted there for the first time.

We will assess precisely where we are on the Paris goals and where we need to double down. What that means for us in concrete terms is that we want to reach a formal agreement at the COP to at least triple the growth of renewables worldwide by 2030 and double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency.

That’s something we initiated – and I’ll admit I’m a little bit proud of that – at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue here in early summer. My sincere thanks for that go not only to my Special Envoy for International Climate Action, Jennifer Morgan, and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, but also to the many players sitting in this room and, by proxy through the UAE embassy here, to Sultan Al Jaber.

Not only did we initiate it, we have also laid the groundwork so that agreement on it can be reached at this COP. At the same time, we also need to agree, finally, on the worldwide phasing-out of fossil fuels, from the energy sector first of all.

This is urgently necessary if we are to get below 1.5°. Tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency won’t be enough by themselves to achieve that. For us, though – as a large share of the private sector around the world has not only understood but also invested in – it’s also a global opportunity for sustainable growth, for green industrialisation and for reliable energy supplies in areas where the world has not yet been completely electrified in every nook and cranny.

Renewables, after all, are more cost-effective and decentralised, and they can be used with less dependence on volatile global pricing. They bring climate justice within reach and, above all, make it a tangible reality.

And the good bit is that they bring jobs, all over the world. IRENA estimates that some 112 million people could be working in jobs connected with the energy transition by 2030, more than twice as many as today.

Many of our partners, not only in Europe and North America but particularly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, have recognised that potential and will be taking full advantage of it. That, too, is important to me. We are no longer in that era when we would say others should learn from Germany or from Europe.

No – the good thing is that we can all learn from one another. We, too – as we experienced so clearly early this summer – can learn from Africa in particular.

Take Kenya, for example. At the African Climate Summit in Nairobi in September, President William Ruto vividly set out the opportunities opened up by progressive climate policy – as, quote, an “engine for propelling Africa into a realm of stability and prosperity”.

Kenya has taken a leading role in the energy transition and has progressed so far that it already gets more than 90% of its electricity generation from renewable sources. It’s aiming to make that 100% by 2030. In Germany, we are currently at 52%, averaged out over the year. We want to raise that to 80% by 2030. And we’re rock-solid in our commitment to climate neutrality by 2045. Of course, we will be looking very carefully at the thing that made the world a little more complicated today, the judgment from the Federal Constitutional Court. What remains clear to us, however, is that we’ll only make progress in fighting the climate crisis, which requires funding, if everyone shoulders their responsibilities. And we, Germany’s Federal Government, are taking our place front and centre in that scenario.

Looking towards the COP, however, we do of course have to be realistic. Wishful thinking won’t get us anywhere. Wishful thinking won’t reduce global warming by a single tenth of a degree. That’s why it’s so important to us always to flank the big objectives with – though some call it small fry – negotiations on every little detail, fighting hard and turning the little cogs that will make the great energy transition work worldwide.

In that work, we must be realistic. The objectives we have set ourselves for the COP, to accelerate renewables and energy efficiency, but especially regarding the phasing-out of fossil fuels, are not only ambitious, not just hard nuts to crack; all those objectives depend on geopolitics too. And if we ignore that, as we saw so clearly at the last COP, then we won’t get anywhere. Geopolitics and fossil fuel interests make themselves felt everywhere in climate negotiations. Negotiations are not always just about the climate issues that are on the table but may well be about considerations of power politics, for example, in relation to future technological leadership in green technologies or the interests of the fossil-fuel industry. To be honest, we have the same thing in the national debate. It’s perhaps logical, therefore, that the international discourse is no different. That doesn’t mean we should despair. We should just always bear it in mind. It means we need to keep our eyes open. What do certain decisions mean for the prosperity of strong fossil-fuel industries or for the poverty of countries which did not enjoy that prosperity in the past? And of course, when the subject is climate damage, the question arises: who’s actually going to pay for all this?

That, too, is an issue which we cannot look at solely through a neutral, climate-focused lens. All this is geopolitics as well. These are all major power issues. What’s clear to me is that, if we want to not only convince others but tackle these powerful issues together, then we need to show clearly what we stand for – honestly but, yes, also powerfully.

What we stand for is, first, tangible progress on protecting the climate – of course. If we industrialised countries stand accused of not meeting our own climate targets, then we can’t remind others of theirs quite so credibly. What we stand for is also the climate and energy partnerships which make it clear that all sides can make use of them. And we stand for solidarity with those who are most at risk in this crisis. So for us, genuine lasting partnership and solidarity are key elements inambitious climate goals. And that’s my second point.

We know that the conditions for a successful energy transition are different from country to country and that many need support in tackling that change. Each society has its own climate journey, its own industrial journey. So there can be no “one size fits all” solutions to suit all states. That’s another reason why this is so difficult. Finding a climate partnership with South Africa doesn’t mean that we can use the same climate partnership for Indonesia, never mind for small island states. We have to continually re-examine how our individual climate-action journeys might look. And that’s exactly what we’re working on with our partners, be that in terms of the phasing-out of coal in Indonesia and how it can be managed in a socially just manner, or in terms of the potential for new jobs in South Africa. That’s precisely why we pushed the Just Energy Transition Partnerships so vigorously during our Presidency of the G7, to very deliberately combine climate policy and justice.

And we act in solidarity with those people who have played the smallest role in bringing about the climate crisis but are now being hit hardest. Germany has increased its annual contribution to climate finance to more than 6 billion euro from its budget. We did so in 2022 already, three years earlier than we had pledged – because we know that this is not just an issue of climate finance but a key geopolitical issue of trust as well. In so doing, we are playing our part in the industrialised countries’ pledge to mobilise 100 billion euro for climate finance. And we are confident that that pledge will finally be fulfilled this year. Germany and Canada have, I think, created an important basis for this.

However, we also know that we are increasingly close to the limits of adaptability. And in many countries, the damage and incredible loss caused by the climate crisis can scarcely be absorbed any more. When a small island state is hit by a hurricane for the nth time, at some point, even if it’s a middle income country, it will no longer be able to afford to rebuild its schools, its hospitals. That’s why the question of financing, but also debt relief and restructuring, is so hugely important. For that reason, we – the Federal Republic of Germany in concert with the EU – were so vehement at the last Climate Conference, perhaps a little pushy, about finally making some progress on the financial instruments, especially the loss and damage fund, particularly for the vulnerable states – even though not everyone, and not all of our friends, were immediately keen on that. But as Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman put it so aptly at the end of the last COP, the fund is “not a charity. It is a down payment on our shared futures. It is a down payment on climate justice”.

And now at COP28, the task is to set up the fund and fill it with money. A concrete proposal is on the table. That wasn’t easy either. But it was hugely important that we put such intensive work into it. For here too, the devil is in the detail – and here too, geopolitics play an incredible role. What’s important to us is that the money reach the most vulnerable people as quickly as possible and that all states that are able to provide funding actually do so. That’s why we didn’t consider it the right way just to copy the old funds, because we saw their weaknesses clearly: they didn’t always reach the most vulnerable. Part of this, of course, is that the industrialised countries need to play their part. However, given the damage and loss and, in my view, given the need for climate justice, part of it is now also that the states which have made a lot of money with fossil fuels, such as the Gulf states or countries like China, which have enjoyed high growth rates in recent years and have also been among the greatest emitters of greenhouse gases historically, likewise need to pay into the fund. If you want to assume geostrategic responsibility, you need to assume global climate responsibility as well.

Therefore and to that end, I want to appeal at this point – because we do a lot of talking, including with civil society – for us to avoid being naive on this. Part of what climate justice means is analysing things properly. If we are insisting that climate justice has to benefit the most vulnerable above all, then it makes sense, as I see it, not just to set up the new fund within the old UNFCCC regime. The regime is incredibly important, but that would have meant that the most vulnerable and above all the island states would not have had the most immediate access to the fund. We have now hopefully found a way to both strengthen the UNFCCC climate regime and at the same time set up a fund that is suited to the times and genuinely contributes to climate justice. That’s a hugely important step. Therein lies my third point.

We can see everywhere that where we’ve made progress, we’ve primarily achieved it when working together, including sometimes behind closed doors. That does sometimes sound like dodgy dealings, but it also often serves to build confidence that not everything that’s said can be in the headlines and spread across social media straight away – especially when the conversation is about such tricky, difficult issues. Above all, we owe the progress made to a cooperating and active civil society and to scientific experts.

It’s no coincidence, therefore, that it’s the scientific community in Germany which has always played the key role not only in launch events but also in the progress made – the scientific community, working together with think tanks, with NGOs, with courageous companies, with people like you in this room. The progress we have made since 2015 would not have been possible without those strong voices and the strong voice of the climate movement. The Paris Agreement would not have come about if there hadn’t been so many of you and your international partners tirelessly spreading information, working out scenarios and, above all, mobilising people young and old. Without the innovative power of our economy, without the courage to embark on change and reform, we wouldn’t have achieved an ambitious energy transition, the global transformation, in Germany either. It’s therefore clear to me that – as in 2015 – if we really want to change anything at this COP, then we need those players. If we want to get from a mindset shift to a gear shift, it will take the interaction of all partners, worldwide. And for that, we will especially need the voices of young people, for they have the very best networks of ties around the world.

For many years, youth organisations have urged us to set up a separate youth delegation for the COP. We heard their arguments and discussed them, probably taking too long about it. But the good thing is, for this COP, we have for the first time nominated a youth delegation, and we look forward to those discussions. I’d therefore like to add a few words about the young people, particularly those in Germany, who are standing up so strongly for climate action.

What makes their message calling for climate action, that movement, so strong, what has made it so strong and continues to strengthen it, is their willingness not to be cowed by the complexity of the climate crisis. We’re seeing now, in connection with the Middle East, that political groups claiming to be progressive in their thinking unfortunately don’t automatically have that willingness to deal with complexities. We’re seeing supposedly anti-colonialist attempts to justify the violence of Hamas. But to justify the violence of Hamas is to justify the murder and kidnapping of hundreds of civilians. It is to justify terrorism and barbarity. Anyone who shouts “Freedom for Palestine” needs to know that freedom for Palestinians will only be possible if there is also peace and security for Israelis. That’s why it’s so important that so many Germany climate activists have expressed a clear stance, against Hamas terrorism and against open and above all covert antisemitism. Thank you for that.

Ladies and gentlemen, however much the global geopolitical situation is currently tearing us to pieces, in my view that’s the very reason this COP is probably as vital as the one in 2015. The geopolitical situation wasn’t easy back then either, and many here in this room, who were there, know it. We were all asking ourselves – I was a very young Member of the Bundestag at the time – has the world actually got the strength left for international treaties? After the failed negotiations in Copenhagen and The Hague, that COP was also headlined, “Has multilateralism failed?” And in the end, even the pope had to step in.

I believe we’re at a moment like that again. I can’t promise you today that we’ll successfully manage every aspect of the climate course correction with some 190 states in Dubai – not least in view of the geopolitical pressure. What the German Government can promise you, though, is that we will work with all our might to ensure that the global community will have the courage to show multilateralism can work, particularly in these dark geopolitical times. For we have understood that this is about our shared security, about our future – and that not just CO2, but ultimately security as well, knows no borders.