Weather report 2020 for Baden-Wuerttemberg: Apple trees bloom 22 days too early – Baden-Wuerttemberg

Stuttgart – In the past 30 years, the apple trees in the southwest began to bloom on May 3rd on average – last year it was April 11th, more than three weeks earlier than usual. Only in 1992 was there an even earlier date. But the apple blossom is just one of the many indications that climate change is also becoming more pronounced in Baden-Württemberg. Many more of these clues can be found in one new report of the Ministry of the Environment and the State Institute for the Environment, in which the year 2020 is classified in terms of climate.

Too warm, too dry, too sunny: this is how this year can be described in a few words. At 10.2 degrees it was the second warmest year since records began in 1881 (only 2018 was a tad warmer at 10.4 degrees). Overall, the average temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees over the past 140 years. It is almost a sign of fate that the goal of the decisive Paris Climate Conference 2015 was not to exceed this value as much as possible. According to these new data, this will be extremely difficult, at least in Baden-Württemberg.

The drought weighed on agriculture for six months

In 2020, rain had decreased by 17 percent compared to the same period 1961-1990. The majority of the springs and the groundwater level have long since permanently shown that the previous normal values ​​are no longer being achieved. Forests are also suffering from the drought, and the report mentions a threatening drought for agriculture that lasted from April to September. In fact, the sun shone significantly longer than usual at 2050 hours; this makes 2020 the second sunniest year after 2003.

At least the weather extremes that climate change is supposed to bring with it more and more did not materialize. There was neither devastating heavy rain nor extreme floods. And despite mostly very low water levels in the rivers, the oxygen concentration in the Neckar, for example, was almost always uncritical.

Hot summers and mild winters are the new reality

For the outgoing Environment Minister Franz Untersteller (Greens), the new data, which were initially presented to the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, are worrying: “In the past 30 years alone, the mean annual temperature has risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius.” Eva Bell, President of the State Institute for the Environment, predicted that hot summers and mild winters will occur more frequently: “Drought and high temperatures will be the new reality in Baden-Württemberg, especially on the Upper Rhine Graben.”

For Franz Untersteller, after ten years in office, it is an appeal to say goodbye when he says: “Only if we invest vigorously and courageously in climate protection today can we prevent the costs that arise from the consequences of climate change from being paid at all can still pay. We are not allowed to leave this bill to our grandchildren and their children. ”

Strong criticism of climate policy by the SPD and associations

The SPD environment secretary Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, who comes from Waldshut, criticized the green-black state government violently. Baden-Württemberg has just half achieved its goal of meeting ten percent of its electricity needs from wind power. The current expansion targets for photovoltaics are also not sufficient to reduce CO2 emissions to the extent planned. The federal government wants to reduce greenhouse gases by 55 percent by 2030: “It cannot be that the government in Baden-Württemberg is only 42 percent committed,” said Schwarzelühr-Sutter, who is also the deputy state chairman of the SPD.

The environmental associations Nabu and BUND also drew a mixed balance of the state government’s environmental policy a few days ago. Overall, they gave green-black a grade of good to satisfactory. Much has been initiated – but Baden-Württemberg’s contribution is still not enough to achieve the international climate targets. The BUND state chairwoman Brigitte Dahlbender said for example: “We still miss a timetable for phasing out the use of climate-damaging coal-fired power plants in Baden-Württemberg.”

Minister sees the Southwest on the right track

After reviewing the new report, Nabu state chairman Johannes Enssle said: “Don’t imagine what lies ahead if this development continues.” He demanded that the climate protection law be amended within the first hundred days after it came into force. The expansion goals for wind power and photovoltaics are far too modest. Enssle: “The climate crisis, coupled with the not yet foreseeable consequences of the dramatic decline in insect populations, will have far more far-reaching consequences for human civilizations than the current corona pandemic.”

Franz Untersteller, on the other hand, attested to the state government and thus himself that he was on the right track. The new climate protection law for Baden-Württemberg sets the right accents. The CO2 emissions in the southwest were at a much lower level than in other federal states – that is why the reductions could no longer be so high, argued the minister. In the case of photovoltaics, an increase of 35 percent compared to 2019 was achieved last year – those are good numbers. However, Untersteller himself is promoting the introduction of mandatory photovoltaic systems on new private buildings; from 2022 this will initially apply to new commercial buildings.

The minister went on to say that wind power is being slowed down in the southwest by federal policy requirements. However, it has been achieved that there will be a southern quota for tenders from 2022, so that wind power can also increase again in Baden-Württemberg. In addition, they want to accelerate the approval process significantly. While 123 wind turbines went into operation in the south-west in 2017, there were just five in 2019 and twelve in the past year.

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