Several international climate policy experts have warned that the incoming German government's decision to relieve the Foreign Ministry of responsibility for international climate initiatives could weaken the country's international engagement, Handelsblatt reports.

“The Foreign Ministry has the diplomatic networks and extensive experience, and it can strategically combine external climate policy with security and development policy,” argues Lukas Kahlen (Lukas Kahlen) of the think tank NewClimate Institute. Shifting responsibility to the environment ministry could weaken foreign policy activity.

Table Media reported that responsibility for international climate policy will be handed to the Environment Ministry, which handled it for many years and which will once again lead the negotiations at the UN climate change conferences (COP). The Social Democratic Party (SPD), which will run the ministry, has not yet named a candidate for minister.

“Now that the US government is no longer involved in international climate policy, Germany urgently needs someone to represent climate policy on the international stage,” Christoph Bals, policy director of the non-governmental organisation Germanwatch, told Handelsblatt. Such a climate envoy could also be a representative of the chancellor's office.

The previous government and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party placed great emphasis on international climate policy, its security dimension and coordination with international partners, entrusting responsibility to the Foreign Ministry, which had strengthened the issue with a climate foreign policy strategy that it tied closely to Germany's first National Security Strategy and its China strategy, as well as creating a dedicated climate envoy post, held by former Greenpeace head Jennifer Morgan.