Introduction. The relevance of this study is explained primarily by the close attention of the public to environmental problems and environmental protection. Since Germany takes an active position within the framework of the environmental movement, the vocabulary of this thematic group is constantly being enriched in the modern German language. German word formation allows you to quickly respond to polemics about environmental problems and form new words by stem composition. At the same time, one of the most important means of categorizing and conceptualizing the surrounding reality is a metaphor, which is of interest not only as a linguistic phenomenon, but also as a cognitive mechanism. Purpose: to analyze metaphorical nominations with the component “Klima-” in modern German and identify their semantic features and pragmatic potential. Materials and methods: the corpus of illustrative material was extracted by a continuous sampling method from articles and comments for the period of 2019‒2023 posted on the pages of German organizations and websites of German-language media (“Zeit”, “Spiegel”, “Achgut.com”, “Capital”, “NEOPresse”, “Die Tagespost”, “Situation”, etc.). For the objectivity of the results the texts reflecting not only the official position of the country's leadership on climate issues, but also the opposition opinion, often skeptical and negatively colored, were considered. In the course of the study, the descriptive method, the method of component analysis, the method of contextual analysis were used. Research results, discussion. The study of metaphorical nominations with the “Klima-” component has shown that semantically they can be divided into two main groups in modern German. The first group includes lexical units that verbalize objective processes and factors affecting climate change, as well as its consequences. The second group includes nominations describing a person's attitude to these problems. Social metaphors are the most common. The source of metaphorical transference in some cases is the sphere of religion or psychology. In the sample material there are also metaphorical nominations related to politics: terror, police, fascism, Bolshevism, dictatorship, the Jacobin regime. According to the results of the study, it becomes obvious that such comparisons cause negatively colored associations, and, as a result, there is a predominance of lexical units with negative connotation in the sample material. Conclusion. Environmental problems are currently being paid much attention to in many countries, including Germany. The German language has a productive word-formation potential and is being replenished with new words often formed by stem composition. Metaphorical nominations with the “Klima-” component reflect the reaction of the country's leadership and opposition representatives to events and polemics on urgent environmental issues. The negative connotation in the nomination is introduced through the second component, which is the source of metaphorical transference (crime, religion, war and politics, human physiology and psychology).