Climate-Alliance Germany () is a network of about 150 civil society organizations, including environment groups, development groups, churches, organisations from the fields of youth, education, culture, social welfare and health, as well as trade unions, and consumer associations. Founded in 2007, the aim of the Alliance is to provide a common front to apply pressure to German decision-makers to adopt socially just climate action measures. Prominent members include WWF, BUND (or Friends of the Earth Germany), and the trade union ver.di.
A key issue for the Alliance is the prevention of new coal-fired power plants (the Anti-Coal Campaign). The Alliance wants the German government to phase-out coal (Kohleausstieg) and promote renewable energy.
Activities
Coordination of Climate Protection Plan 2050 and Programme of Measures 2030
Coordinated by Climate Alliance Germany, more than 50 organisations published the "Climate Protection Plan 2050 of German Civil Society" in November 2016 as a result of a broad participation process. In it, they call for more ambitious climate protection targets and legal binding force. As a national response to the Paris Climate Agreement, the German government had previously published its Climate Protection Plan 2050, which was criticised by Climate Alliance Germany as insufficient.
Climate Alliance Germany then coordinated the "Climate Protection 2030 Action Programme of German Civil Society". More than sixty organisations from across the spectrum of civil society describe in the extensive demands paper the measures they see as necessary in all fields of climate policy in order for Germany to achieve its climate target of 2030. The central demands are an early exit from coal, the rapid implementation of changes in the transport and agricultural sectors, and an ambitious price for . Both projects were funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment.
Berlin Climate Talks
Since November 2015, Climate Alliance Germany has hosted the Berlin Climate Talks on changing topics several times a year. The events take place in cooperation with its member organisations. The panel guests have already included several federal ministers, state secretaries and party leaders. The first event was dedicated to civil society proposals for a more climate-friendly air transport concept for Germany.
Anti-Coal Campaign
Climate Alliance Germany advocates an ambitious coal phase-out. The reduction of coal generation and coal mining is a key element in meeting German and international climate targets and achieving the necessary decarbonisation in terms of effective climate protection. For this reason, the Alliance demands that no new opencast mines be approved. Existing opencast mines in the Rhineland lignite mining area, in Lusatia and in Central Germany are not to be expanded but reduced in size.
The structural change in the lignite regions must be actively shaped politically and financially secured, for example through a structural change fund. In cooperation with local and regional groups, Climate Alliance Germany is also committed to the preservation of villages and landscapes threatened by opencast mining. In order to achieve these goals, the Alliance has made the legal, economic and social aspects of the commercial use of coal a priority issue. In political talks, demand papers, expert reports and studies, Climate Alliance Germany points out the dangers of coal-fired power generation for the climate, environment and health. In addition, it creates public attention through media reports, events, actions and demonstrations.
From 2008 to 2013, Climate Alliance Germany organized an anti-coal campaign to prevent new coal-fired power plants in Germany. The Alliance coordinated and supported civil society activities. As a result of the campaign in cooperation with citizens' initiatives, environmental associations and activists from various sectors of society, 17 climate-damaging coal-fired power plant projects were stopped during this period.
Following a Greenpeace protest against lignite mining in the Lausitz in September 2013, a petition of 112,157 signatures in support was handed to the Lausitz authorities. Daniela Setton, an energy policy speaker from the Alliance, commented that it was the most successful collection of signatures against a new German opencast mine ever.
In July 2014 the Alliance co-authored and co-published a report on the top 30 most polluting coal-fired power plants in Europe and called for their decommissioning.