Federal Climate Adaptation Act - Everything you need to know

Natural disasters are no longer a rarity. In July 2021, Germany suffered a flood disaster in which a total of 188 people died. Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia were the worst affected by the storm. The flood caused billions in property damage. Back in the 1960s, the canadian media theorist and communication scientist Marshall McLuhan emphasized: “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” We are all responsible for the well-being of our planet and its inhabitants. The Federal Climate Adaptation Act promotes adjustment to the consequences of climate change and increases resilience to climatic changes. Our article looks at the most important aspects of the Federal Climate Adaptation Act and shows how the federal, state and local governments can prepare to collect the necessary data and comply with the new directive.

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Why was the Federal Climate Adaptation Act established?

The Federal Climate Adaptation Act creates a legal framework for the systematic and coordinated implementation of climate adaptation measures. The Federal Government should ensure that Germany is prepared for the many challenges posed by climate change and that the quality of life, economic stability and the environment in the country are protected. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, flooding and storms have increased recently. These events have caused considerable damage to infrastructure, agriculture and residential buildings and put people's health and lives at risk.

The Federal Climate Adaptation Act is intended not only to better prepare society for such events and increase resilience, but also to protect the population from injuries and disease outbreaks and preserve the ecosystem. Forward-looking adjustments are also intended to prevent financial losses and safeguard the competitiveness of the German economy.

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What is the Federal Climate Adaptation Act?

The Federal Climate Adaptation Act is intended to record the effects of climate change and the resulting risks for people, society and the economy and to draw up strategies and countermeasures to deal with the risks. It is part of Germany's comprehensive climate policy and supplements measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting adjustment to the climate changes that have already occurred.

The law specifies that comprehensive climate adaptation strategies and plans must be developed by the federal government based on climate risk analysis. The climate risk analysis, which the federal government must prepare according to the current state of scientific knowledge, is intended to identify in which fields of action, in which climate impacts such as temperature increases or changes in precipitation, and in which regions of Germany particularly high climate risks such as floods or heat waves may occur.

The federal government has to provide the federal states and local authorities with the data used in the climate risk analysis, the technical basis and the methodological guidelines. The aim is to analyze weather extremes such as heat waves, heavy rainfall and droughts and their impact on various sectors such as society, the environment, infrastructure and the economy. The federal states are also obliged to draw up their own climate risk analysis with interim targets, which can be based on the federal government's analysis and specified, supplemented or replaced by their own studies.

The climate adaptation strategies at federal and state level serve to implement concrete measures to cope with climate change and increase adaptive capacity. It is necessary to consider different clusters in the strategy, including infrastructure, agriculture, human health, urban development and much more. The climate adaptation strategy must include sufficient targets with measurable indicators. The responsibility for naming the targets lies with the relevant federal ministry. In addition, a climate adaptation concept must be drawn up at federal level by legal entities under public law such as the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) or the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) under the supervision of the federal government and the listed measures must be implemented.

Furthermore, monitoring reports on the achievement of the goals of the climate adaptation strategy and the current state of science must be prepared to inform the public about the observed consequences of climate change in Germany and the status of target achievement. Monitoring under the Federal Climate Adaptation Act serves as a scientific basis for assessing progress in achieving the targets and for updating the climate adaptation strategy.

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Who is affected by the Federal Climate Adaptation Act?

The Federal Climate Adaptation Act affects the federal government, federal states, local authorities and the scientific community. The federal government is responsible for adopting and monitoring the act and for drawing up the climate risk analysis and the climate adaptation strategy at the federal level. In addition, the federal government must regularly provide data on the amount of damage caused by extreme weather events and federal expenditure on climate adjustment and then make it available to the public.

The federal states submit their own strategies for climate adjustment and climate risk analyzes, which can be based on the federal government's strategy and analysis. These should include research and collection of climate data, as well as the processing of existing climate data on the current situation and future development for the respective state territory. The federal states determine the public bodies that draw up a climate adaptation concept for the areas of the municipalities and districts, if this does not already exist. The climate adaptation concept is intended to develop a strategic approach to climate change adaptation for the respective local authorities. Existing climate adaptation processes and activities must be considered to create a catalog of measures that is tailored to local conditions. Plans such as heat action plans, heavy rain and flood hazard maps must be considered in the climate adaptation concept.

The municipalities are responsible for implementing climate adaptation measures on site and developing local adaptation strategies. The federal and state governments receive support from research institutions in carrying out climate risk analyzes and developing adaptation strategies. In addition, research provides scientific data and findings to enable well-founded decision-making.

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Current status and timetable of the Federal Climate Adaptation Act

The Federal Climate Adaptation Act was passed in Germany in 2023 and came into force on July 1, 2024. The federal government must present a preventive climate adaptation strategy by September 30, 2025, and update it every four years. The federal government must prepare a climate risk analysis even before the strategy. To do so, the federal government must collect and evaluate current climate data. In turn, the climate risk analysis only has to be updated every eight years. An implementation deadline for the analysis is not yet known. The monitoring (see above) must be prepared and published at least every four years after the law comes into force.

The precautionary climate adaptation strategy of the federal states must be submitted by January 31, 2027, at the latest, and updated at least every five years. By September 30, 2024, the federal states must report to the responsible federal ministry on which regional and local climate data is used for climate adaptation and which climate adaptation concepts already exist in the municipalities and districts. The municipalities and districts must therefore collect their data on the concepts and forward it to the state government in the form of reports.

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How can the federal government, federal states and local authorities prepare for the Federal Climate Adaptation Act?

In the future, the federal and state governments have to create a precautionary climate adaptation strategy and a climate risk analysis. In addition, the federal government is responsible for the monitoring report. The challenges of the Federal Climate Adaptation Act lie in the collection and processing of climate data, as well as creating and ensuring well-founded and data-based measures for climate adaptation. In addition, reports have to be prepared on the achievement of targets and the current status. The public sector also faces a challenge in the distribution of responsibilities among the various federal authorities along the defined topic clusters.

To prepare for the Federal Climate Adaptation Act, both the federal government and the federal states need to identify the required climate data and plan the technical implementation of data processing. A data platform such as Polyteia's makes it possible to record climate data such as sea level, temperatures or precipitation without media discontinuity, allowing a comprehensive climate risk analysis of the current situation to be created and evaluated. This makes it possible to evaluate measures against the risks of climate change based on current data-based reports. With the possibility of interorganizational cooperation, the various authorities can communicate and cooperate with each other without restriction across the different administrative levels at federal, state and municipal level. The states' reporting obligations to the federal government can be seamlessly forwarded by simply creating and sharing reports. With Polyteia's data platform, you can connect any number of data sources via connectors and collect data using data input masks where no data sources are available. With an intuitive user interface, you can collaboratively create reports and share them with selected organizations or individuals.

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Summary of the Federal Climate Change Adaptation Act

The Federal Climate Change Adaptation Act promotes adjustment to the unavoidable consequences of climate change and resilience to climatic changes. The federal states are already facing requirements in the form of an obligation to report regional and local climate data and are creating additional obligations for the public sector. It is therefore essential that the Federal Climate Change Adaptation Act is understood and that the federal, state and municipal levels prepare for data collection that is secure and free of media discontinuity so that federal states such as Rhineland-Palatinate or North Rhine-Westphalia can protect their citizens from climate disasters such as the century flood.