Germany is facing major societal challenges due to climate change. The last three summers of drought and the flood disaster in the Ahr valley have further increased the urgency of the problem with regard to their noticeable impacts on the environment and human health. This also affects policy fields that have so far received less attention in legislation. Accordingly, the political importance of timely and anticipatory climate adaptation is growing.
Regulatory measures provide an important guidance framework for government actors at different governance levels (federal, state and local). They can contribute to a heightened awareness of the problem and regulate the responsibilities and requirements for action of different actors. In the 2nd Progress Report on the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change (DAS), the Federal Government declared that it would strengthen legal instruments in the future in order to increase adaptation capacity in Germany. To this end, measures that are particularly effective in terms of climate adaptation are to be selected in particular.
The project aims to provide concrete policy recommendations on the content of legal instruments for climate adaptation at federal and state level. Despite its importance, the regulatory mainstreaming of adaptation in Germany has so far only been implemented in rudimentary form and must therefore be expanded in all fields of action of the DAS.
Based on analyses of legal changes and legal instruments with potential for mainstreaming climate change adaptation, concrete proposals for the content of selected legal instruments of the federal and state governments are to be drafted. The proposals will be developed on the basis of the current state of research and in compliance with constitutional and European law. Subsequently, the practical suitability and effectiveness of the regulatory proposals will be examined and, for this purpose, compared with the experiences and requirements of enforcement practice and, if necessary, further developed. For this purpose, expert workshops will be held with representatives of practice.