‘Clear Direction for Climate Protection’
Lübeck/Osnabrück. The German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU – Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt), based in Osnabrück, will confer this year’s German Environmental Award today (Sunday) in Lübeck. The award is worth a total of 500,000 euros and is one of the most lucrative environmental awards in Europe. The award will be presented by German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to climate scientist Professor Friederike Otto and wood construction pioneer Dagmar Fritz-Kramer. Despite ongoing devastating wars such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East, ‘the two award winners inspire us not to give up and to continue working towards species conservation and environmental protection,’ said Professor Kai Niebert, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the DBU, and DBU Secretary General Alexander Bonde. Having a ‘clear direction for climate protection’ is now more vital than ever. The event will be moderated by Tatjana Geßler and will be streamed live at www.dbu.de/live.
Danger for the ice shelf and impending climate tipping points
Recent studies have confirmed the call to action issued by Niebert and Bonde. For example, a study by the British Antarctic Survey concluded that the ice shelf in the Amundsen Sea in the western Antarctic could melt away completely – even if the 1.5-degree target is achieved. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris in 2015, the 200 nations involved agreed to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. A United Nations report has also warned of irreversible climate tipping points. Key risks cited – besides glacier melt – include species extinction, droughts, water shortages and space debris.
Niebert: Essential to keep moving on sustainability and transformation
Bonde reissued his plea to view the climate and biodiversity crises ‘as a joint mission’. He said: “The two are inextricably linked.’ The DBU Secretary General renewed his call from the previous day at a DBU symposium on the subject: ‘An environmentally friendly economy must become the standard.’ Bonde: ‘Baufritz managing director Dagmar Fritz-Kramer continues to demonstrate what the business world can achieve.’ In view of the wars raging around the world, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the DBU warned ‘that we should not succumb to panic and fear’. Niebert: ‘The road to sustainability and transformation of the economy and society is not a fair-weather policy. We cannot afford to let up here and must still be in a position to act even in times of great crisis.’ Otto’s work is ‘of vital importance’ here.
Bonde: Award winners are a true inspiration and motivation
According to Bonde, Friederike Otto and Dagmar Fritz-Kramer are a ‘true inspiration and motivation for us to learn from the impacts of global warming, which are already evident today, and to continue implementing environmental and resource protection measures’. Friederike Otto from Imperial College London is an ‘outstanding climate scientist and has made a significant contribution to attribution science’. The discipline, also known as attribution research, investigates the link between climate change and weather. For example, ‘whether there are connections between climate change and extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods and heavy rainfall. In 2015, the now 41-year-old climate scientist founded the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative together with her Dutch colleague Professor Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, who has since passed away, and played a leading role in examining the attribution of extreme weather events to human-caused climate change. There are three key parts to Otto’s work: the rapid publication of sound scientific knowledge regarding the possible connections between global climate change and regional extreme weather; research into the causes, as well as presentation of the local impacts of the global climate crisis; and proposals for effective adaptation measures.
Construction sector has a key role to play in climate neutrality
Dagmar Fritz-Kramer is the managing director of the family company Bau-Fritz GmbH & Co. KG, based in the Allgäu region of Germany and known as Baufritz for short. Bonde describes her as a ‘source of ideas for new approaches in the construction sector’. Her company is carrying out ‘outstanding pioneering work’ and has, for decades, been demonstrating how prefabricated timber construction in houses, apartments and renovation projects can serve to protect the climate and environment. Baufritz is a driving force of industry and the changes shaping the construction sector, while wood is an ‘excellent means of climate protection, as it stores large amounts of carbon and thus prevents the formation of climate-damaging carbon dioxide’. The construction sector has a key role to play if Germany is to become climate neutral by 2045 as planned. It causes around 40 per cent of the approximately 746 million tonnes of emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in Germany each year. Baufritz says that it processes mainly ‘domestic spruce wood on its doorstep’ in cooperation with sawmills and planing mills within a 120-kilometre radius. It creates around 143,000 square metres of space out of almost 11,900 cubic metres of material each year – from walls and roofs to ceilings. Each Baufritz building corresponds to CO2 savings of around 50 tonnes, with total savings of approximately 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Renovating the building shell of a house from the 1950s alone can reduce the consumption of heating energy by around 75 per cent.
Traditional craft business and internationally renowned climate scientist
Dagmar Fritz-Kramer is a qualified engineer and has been a managing partner of the family business since 2004. The company was founded in 1896 and is now in its fourth generation. Climate scientist Friederike Otto is one of the lead authors of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- Information, facts and figures in the DBU Environmental Award blog: https://www.dbu.de/umweltpreis-blog/
Background:
The DBU’s German Environmental Award, which will be conferred for the 31st time in 2023, recognises the achievements of people who make an outstanding contribution to the protection and preservation of the environment. The award recognises projects, activities and lifetime achievements. Candidates are nominated to the DBU. Nominations may be made, for example, by employers’ associations and trade unions, churches, environmental and nature conservation associations, scientific associations and research communities, the media, the skilled trades and business associations. Self-nominations are not permitted. A jury of independent experts from business, science, technology and social groups appointed by the Board of Trustees of the DBU recommends the award winners each year. The Board of Trustees of the DBU makes the final decision. Information about the German Environmental Award and the award winners: https://www.dbu.de/umweltpreis and https://www.dbu.de/umweltpreis-blog/