Climate Change is one of the most severe crises, humankind is and will be facing in the future. However, it is still treated as one of the fields parties can be voted for or against. Since governmental periods conquer no more than four years usually (speaking of democracies), the long-term feedback of the implemented work and decisions cannot be measured. A shift in aims, such as the debate about ‘Klimageld’, or even completely contradictory goals, may be chosen from one to another governmental period. This led to the idea of introducing a climate dedicated government position which is persistently staffed and advised by climate scientists to fill the gap of science-policy transfer, similarly to the ‘coastal protection’ team in the Netherlands. It can also be voted for, meaning that the person responsible for this position can be chosen, however, there is a consistency in dealing with climate change and projects can be implemented over the long-term.
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Prof. Dr. Michael Brüggemann: “great idea to use a solution (the coastal protection in NL) and try to apply it to climate protection. I would be curious how exactly this agency survives changes of governments. Also protections would need to be in place as we see in the United States, where agencies are apparently not well protected against intervention from the President.”
Dear Greta,
What a great idea. This is certainly a very important and relevant topic and well connected to the course’s overarching question. I’d be interested to learn, how such a position or committee could be installed, how did the Netherlands do it? There is a clear historic perspective, if you think of our system of coastal protection here in Germany, where we also elect for the “Deichamt”, which is a voluntary position, independent of parties.
Good success with this topic!
The fact that legislative periods are in fact relatively short, especially with regards to climate change, is a big problem in the implementation of effective measures. These measures might even have a low priority, especially since they involve a lot of change that might not earn any favours in the short term, i.e. before the next election.
This position of a climate dedicated government position sounds like an interesting idea.
However, I feel like you could elaborate a little more on the details. How can this position actually influence climate action without depending on current political power dynamics?
Nevertheless, the implications of such a position on politics and society are certainly very interesting.