Set goals, identify means, break down barriers: A strategic framework for German foreign climate policy

From climate and energy to industrial, trade and even security policy: foreign climate policy affects many ministerial departments in Germany. The country will be adopting a foreign climate policy strategy to integrate all of these areas later this year. In a policy paper co-authored with the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, the Hertie School’s Centre for Sustainability provides recommendations on how to bring it all together. 

Four scenarios for bridging Germany’s climate and foreign policy goals

The publication, co-led by Centre Director Christian Flachsland and co-authord by Centre researchers Marian Feist and Ann-Kathrin Kühner in the framework of the Ariadne Kopernikus Project, discusses the importance of defining the significance of climate policy in the strategy’s measures. According to the researchers, four scenarios are possible: 1) a stringent orientation of foreign climate policy towards the Paris climate goals; 2) a focus on competitiveness; 3) a subordinate role of climate policy to other foreign policy goals; and 4) climate policy as a means to an end, for example in questions of resources and trade routes.

The researchers stress that the government needs to decide how climate policy can be integrated into Germany’s other foreign policy goals. 

Workshops with experts from the field

For their analysis, the researchers organised workshops with experts from the field. The aim of Germany’s climate foreign policy strategy is to secure climate policy internationally, maintain competitiveness and move forward in a coordinated manner with other countries in the global energy transition.

• Read the policy brief “Eckpunkte zur Entwicklung einer Klimaaußenpolitikstrategie Deutschlands” (in German) or
• find out more about the joint Ariadne Kopernikus research project.