"One may feel differently at the moment, but climate change will place far greater demands on humanity than the pandemic," said Prof. Dr. Clemens Simmer, President of the German Meteorological Society. Therefore, a sufficiently informed society is important. Climate change is presently not perceived as the most urgent problem due to the pandemic, he added. That is dangerous because the longer mankind delays climate protection measures, the more it will be forced to adapt.
Prof. Dr Hermann Held, Head of the Research Unit "Sustainability and Global Change" at the University of Hamburg, called for swifter action. Scenarios of a climate policy-driven demise of prosperity would "almost certainly not come true, if we actually use the instruments already available consistently." This would require significantly greater investment in climate protection technologies and climate research than at present.
