1.5. Ways towards a Modern Climate and Energy Policy

The protection of the environment and climate is one of the global challenges of the 21st Century and enjoys in German politics, in journalism and civil society a high priority. Germany is recognized internationally as a pioneer in climate protection and a pioneer in developing renewable energies. Germany as the first industrial nation in 2011 decided to phase out nuclear energy. For years, Germany pursues a path which brings together climate and environmental protection within the meaning of sustainable management. The key to this is to increase the energy and resource efficiency, the development of renewable energies and raw materials. This promotes the development of new energy technologies on both the supply side, in power stations and renewable energy, as well as on the demand side, where energy is consumed.

The Nature Conservation ("protection of the natural foundations of life") is enshrined as a national objective in Article 20a of the Basic Law since 1994. An intact nature, clean air and clean water are prerequisites for a high quality of life and environmental quality in Germany. For air and water pollution environmental indicators are pointing in a positive direction, because many emissions have been significantly reduced in recent years.

1.5.1 Land Pollution (Nature and Soil Conservation)

Nature conservation and landscape preservation play an important part both in climate protection and in possible adjustment to climate change. This non-technical side of climate protection and adjustment has tended to be neglected hitherto in climate policy worldwide. Still the major role of soils in storing carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) has attracted too little attention in the discussion to date.

The wide range of different soils involved, the ways these are subjected to pressure and the sectors that cause these ecological burdens, as well as the long-term nature of the changes make it difficult to develop a transparent soil regulation regime. The strategic direction set out by soil protection concepts should then aim to

• raise the awareness on the part of users and the general public of the multifunctional tasks performed by soils;
• expand the function- and location-specific ceilings and guiding values for soil loads as well as the verifiable quality objectives, and integrate these into existing legal provisions (soil conservation, water protection, nature conservation laws);
• take soil protection into more account when identifying limits for emissions and immissions (Federal Immission Control Law - BImSchG), and extend existing concepts for the identification of limits (such as the "critical load", which takes into account the relations between nutrient content and content of harmful substances) to include additional parameters;
• compare soil protection regulations with the targets set for other environmental media, and thus build a consistent system of regulations.

1.5.2 Noise Pollution

In the field of noise protection important progress has been made in recent years in legal and practical terms. Firstly, after protracted and arduous negotiations it has proved possible to radically amend the Law on Protection against Aircraft Noise, which did not prove particularly helpful since it first hit the statute books in 1971. Secondly, progress has been made on the enforcement of the noise reduction plan introduced on the basis of the EU Directive on Environmental Noise.