Who bears the cost of the climate crisis?
A panel discussion at the University of Hamburg
On the 3rd of December 2025 the research project WELRISCC met a new audience! Students at the University of Hamburg were invited to a panel discussion about who bears the cost of climate crisis and the politics of eco-social policy-making.
Part of the panel were Katharina Zimmermann as the project lead of WELRISCC, Leonard Borchert, who researches climate extremes and climate statistics at University of Hamburg, and Sebastian Lorenz, a student organiser of Plural economics, all three are based at the University of Hamburg. We also welcomed two actors from outside the university, to bring in more civil society perspectives. Annika Rittmann, who is the media spokesperson of the initiative that organised the referendum „Hamburger Zukunftsentscheid“. After the success at the ballot, one of the iniatives aims is to ensure socially just climate action. Lastly, Jan Rübke joined us as an experienced trade union advocate. He has been involved in the project #wirfahrenzusammen, a joint campaign by Fridays for future and the German trade union ver.di, which brought climate activtists and public transport workers together to renegotiate collective agreements, improve wages and working conditions, and apply political pressure for the expansion of public transport. Alicia Homann, student research assistant for WELRISCC, hosted the event and lead through the evening by asking striking questions, such as „Which social and ecological inequalities are the most concerning?“ or „What should be the goal of eco-social transformation?“.
The panelists discussed societal inequalities as a consequence of the climate crisis, highlighting how climate impacts and policy responses affect social groups differently, as well as the aims and roles of different actors in the eco-social transformation process. A common ground for all speakers was the need for collaboration between scientific disciplines in universities and beyond academia, between scientists, social movements, state institutions and economic actors, in order to develop responses to the climate crisis that are both scientifically sound and socially just, and that can be translated into concrete political and institutional change.
Sebastian Lorenz stressed the difficulty of doing student organising in the context of backlash to progressive transformation processes, whereas Annikas Rittmann advocated for still pursuing reforms in a local level, by taking seriously the concerns of people and actively building a base for universalist solutions. Jan Rübke set a focus on mobilising not yet involved citizens and building coalitions between already involved ones, emphasising the importance of trade union campaigns in workplaces and in civil society. Katharina brought in the context of the social state as a model, which is based on economical growth and contradicts eco-social transformation. Leonard Borchert shared insights into the process of a project mapping geographical distribution of climate risks. He pointed out the possible misuse of such data by economic actors, for example in the context of risk-based investment and insurance practices, and stressed the need for a responsible and transparent handling of climate risk data.
For WELRISCC, this event helped to bring our research questions into conversation with a broad audience of students, and civil society more broadly. We are really grateful for the opportunity to connect with a new audience, and for the dialogue with other researchers and the civil society actors who contributed perspectives that will inform the ongoing work for the research project.