Aug 23

Conclusion after 40 years of climate journalism: We can do it:

FR author Joachim Wille has been writing about the climate crisis for four decades. In his essay ...

fr.de/politik/fazit-nach-40-jahren-klimajournalismus-wir-schaffen-das-94454074.html

Conclusion after 40 years of climate journalism: We can do it

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40 Years of Climate Reporting: Wille Sees Reasons for Hope

The FR author reviews Rio, Germany’s renewable-energy law and the effects of heat and drought.

Key FactsAug 23, 2026 · Reading time: ~45 sec.
Summary created with AI assistance · Source: fr.de

Scientific warnings in the 1980s led to a Bundestag commission in 1987, which recommended cutting Germany’s CO₂ emissions by at least 30 percent by 2005, while the government set a 25-percent target against 1990 levels.

The 1992 Rio summit and its UN climate convention were followed by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with binding targets for industrialized countries and the 2015 Paris Agreement for all states, aiming to limit warming to two degrees, preferably 1.5.

Germany’s 2000 Renewable Energy Sources Act used grid access and 20-year remuneration to promote wind, solar and biomass power, but later funding cuts and expansion limits, Wille writes, contributed among other things to the loss of more than 100,000 solar-sector jobs.

Wille points to more than 180 deaths in the 2021 floods, the extreme heat and drought of 2026 and estimated losses of about €6.3 billion from the June heatwave, yet sees reasons for hope despite the setbacks.

Heat deaths reveal the social coldness of a society.
— Hartmut Graßl, climate scientist; quoted in a 2003 interview recounted by Joachim Wille in his retrospective on four decades of climate journalism.