The project commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and led by the Competence Center Foresight of Fraunhofer Institute seeks to establish and test a cross-departmental horizon scanning system in the context of the implementation of the government’s Climate Protection Programme 2030 for the implementation of the Climate Protection Plan 2050. The exercise includes, firstly, the continuous scanning of relevant climate protection trends for the sectoral and overall societal transformation towards greenhouse gas neutrality. Secondly, the project includes sensemaking tasks, i.e. assessing the relevance of new trends and future issues for climate protection and possible opportunities for climate protection policy. Within the framework of sensemaking, future workshops are held bringing together climate protection policy officers from various ministries as well as experts on future topics. In addition, strategy workshops are planned to identify interdepartmental needs for action in climate protection policy.