Statement on the Draft Action Plan of the German Climate Change Adaptation Strategy

The reduction of climate-changing processes and the simultaneous adaptation to new climate conditions are the great challenges of our era. In order to refine the Federal Government’s climate strategy, the Federal Economics Ministry would like to find out how companies themselves aim to adapt so that they can meet the challenges resulting from climate change. Taking into account aspects of climate change in planning and decision-making processes involving all relevant state and non-state actors is a major concern of this action plan. At the request of the Federal Economics Ministry, BIO Deutschland issued a statement on the draft action plan at the end of April.

On the topic of “further resource efficiency”, BIO Deutschland made clear that biotechnology, which has a great potential to solve problems thanks to its large number of fields of application and methods, can make a particularly significant contribution in the area of reducing the impact of industry on climate change. The use of biotechnological methods in the field of industrial biotechnology protects resources, reduces the amount of energy consumed, and increases the economic net value added. Industrial biotechnology thus makes a substantial contribution to the “biologisation” of traditional industry. By using green biotechnology, an improvement in the quality of farmed plants (larger amount of  biomass per hectare) and a reduction in competition for the use of space can be achieved via higher productivity and reduced losses due to biotic (insects, viruses) and abiotic (environmental influences such as drought, wind and salt) stress factors.

However, BIO Deutschland also pointed out that the biotechnology sector needs better parameters. The current lack of equity capital and overly complex regulations for the use of green biotechnology block the path to innovations that can also have a positive impact on climate change