“Nobody wants to hear stories of loss”

Climate change is a burden, and so is climate protection. Who has to do how much? How do you get people on board? Not with stories of loss, Alena Buyx is convinced. “We need positive visions and ideas of a good life,” says the long-standing chairwoman of the German Ethics Council in ntv's “Climate Lab.” She also strongly advises against rules that only apply to individual population groups. “We must not just pay attention to what private individuals do with consumption and life,” warns the ethicist in an interview. Nevertheless, Buyx believes that restrictions are appropriate, for example in the economy: There is great potential for climate-friendly production in construction and agriculture.

ntv.de: Which climate or environmental law would really be fair?

Alena Buyx: Unfortunately, that is not an answer. One of the main points of our statement on “climate justice” is that we need an overall concept, as complicated as that is. Because with a single measure, you always have the problem: one group is particularly heavily burdened, keywords: car drivers, home builders and so on.

If you charge them, do you have to charge non-drivers as well?

We have an absolute need to act and cannot ignore the fact that measures against climate change will have different impacts on different areas of society. Transparency is needed here. But we must not fall into the trap of individualization and only pay attention to what the individual contributes with their specific consumption and lifestyle. When it comes to issues such as cars, it is easy to forget that private individuals do not invent the way they use mobility. In the village, the car has a different need than in a city with public transport. It would be unfair to leave these things to individuals in such different worlds and expect that this will solve the problem now.

Nevertheless, individual people have to get involved in climate protection and the energy transition. How do you do that?

Without the trap of individualization, but at the same time we are still talking about a moral obligation to cooperate.

That sounds like the well-known “moral finger-pointing”.

We got a hard time for this in the Ethics Council, but in fact we say it clearly: a lot of responsibility lies with politicians and actors such as companies, but also with individuals. We should look at everything at the same time and not blame everything on the individual: it is frustrating when you want to take responsibility but cannot because of some kind of resistance. Eating less meat is also a financial question. That is why it would be nice to increase the pressure where these hurdles exist: politicians must create framework conditions. Industries such as construction or agriculture have great potential for more climate-friendly production. There are companies that are already doing this. As a society, we should not just talk about bans and losses for individuals, we need positive visions and ideas of a good life. We hear too little about that.

Wouldn't we have to create completely new politicians to do this? Because ultimately they only react to what the voters say: we don't want to do anything for future generations.

I would like to disagree. Of course, you can't make political capital out of future projects where the returns come late in four years. The expansion and restructuring of the power grids will take many years. But it has to happen anyway and there are successful examples that show that it can be done: In the late 1960s, Finland had the worst heart health in Europe. People were too fat, smoked, didn't exercise and died early from heart attacks and strokes. Decades later, they are absolutely top-notch.

But a heart attack is also about personal health. An extreme weather event might not hit your home town for another 15 or 20 years, if at all.

In the past, I would have agreed with you. Everyone knows about a heart attack, or someone who has had one. You take the risk yourself. That was not the case with climate change in the past; it happened elsewhere. That is over. People notice the heat in summer. Climate change has never really bothered my mother-in-law, but she has a wonderful garden and has been saying for a few years: I can feel the plants changing. It's just the heat. The German Insurers' Association (GDV) recently published a study: A good 1.5 percent of all households are in flood zones. In some federal states, the figure is 2.5 percent.

And yet new buildings are still being approved in flood areas; nevertheless, many people in the Ahr Valley want to build their house on the same spot where it was destroyed, even though the insurance companies say: please don't.

If I rebuild the house where it was destroyed by flooding, that is obviously a bad decision. But it makes a difference whether you have long been rooted in one place or whether it is a new build. This has to be addressed politically.

But it is also a question of justice: Of course, in a community of solidarity, it is right to support people with tax money after a flood disaster. But do we have to take responsibility for bad decisions made by individuals when, against our better judgment, a house is built in a flood zone?

I find this question difficult because we are now looking at individual people who live there and do not want to leave.

This question does not have to be related to the Ahr Valley. Municipalities continue to designate floodplains as new development areas.

Exactly, that's the problem. It's not a purely individual decision. That's why you shouldn't look at the individual case where a family has lost their house and wants to rebuild it in the same place. You have to take two steps back and see who approved it, whether a risk calculation was included and whether the rules can be adjusted. That's why it's really important to think about everything at the same time. But it gets even more complicated: if a federal government wants to create something sustainable within four years, it also has to consider the different sectors. Which politician wants to do that?

Do we also have to talk about bans?

It depends on the overall concept. In the Ethics Council, we are cautious about bans, because bans on consumption in particular assign responsibility too one-sidedly to individuals.

What about companies? Does it make sense to write into a supply chain law that child labor is prohibited?

We won't say anything about that, but it is actually easier to justify ethically imposing certain restrictions on companies than interfering with the consumption decisions of many individuals. This has been going on for ages. For example: you have been producing in a certain way up until now. Now a few things should be done differently. There are already many examples of this. It is nothing unusual.

At the same time, many companies are saying that the supply chain law and similar regulations are stifling the German and European economy. We are no longer competitive, we are losing industry, jobs and our prosperity. Then people are also against it and say: I don't want it until everyone else joins in.

That is the free-riding argument, to which there are a number of answers, which we also formulate in the statement: We have a certain historical responsibility, because many dirty and CO2-intensive technologies such as the combustion engine were developed in Germany. Secondly, it is eye-rolling when you hear that Germany only causes two percent of global emissions, but nobody mentions that we have outsourced a lot of production. That is ridiculous. Thirdly, you can of course wait until everyone else joins in, but honestly – you can forget about that. Even with major multilateral achievements such as the Declaration of Human Rights, the World Health Organization, NATO and other alliances, it has never been the case that we waited until the very last person said: That's a great idea! You need people who lead the way and who tell positive stories about such changes. If everything is sold as a story of loss, it is no wonder that nobody is interested.

Like the Trier municipal utilities, which will be running on 100 percent renewable energy by 2026 and where people are much more satisfied with the energy transition than in other parts of the country?

People need to hear stories like these, or examples like Paris, which has been transformed from a car-mad city into an incredibly beautiful city worth living in. You don't recognize the city anymore when you walk around. You can feel it.

Clara Pfeffer and Christian Herrmann spoke with Alena Buyx. The conversation has been shortened and edited for better comprehensibility. You can listen to the entire conversation in the “Climate Laboratory” podcast.