from 24.3.2020 - 43 min.
Denmark's capital has reached a milestone on its way to becoming a bicycle city. There are now more bikes on the streets than cars. Will other cities follow suit?
Read the full article from 30.11.2016 on
www.theguardian.com
Keywords:
Bike-/Velo-City, News Blog Denmark, News Blog Europe (without DE)
The Federal Cabinet today approved an update of the Resource Efficiency Programme. Germanwatch welcomes in principle the government's plan for resource efficiency, but says that the original draft of the Environment Ministry has been weakened considerably, especially with regard to human rights issues. "In many places we now only find lip service instead of a binding framework," regrets Cornelia Heydenreich, Team Leader Corporate Responsibility at Germanwatch. She emphasises: "Resource protection must go hand in hand with human rights protection".
In the September draft it had still said: "In all funding instruments of the raw materials strategy, state funding will be linked to binding compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights [...]". Heydenreich: "That is the level of ambition we would have needed." Now it just says that eligibility for funding will be "assessed" in terms of human rights. The Resource Efficiency Programme merely refers to the parallel process of drafting a "National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights", which is to be brought to the Federal Cabinet in May. "Now it is up to the federal government to present such an ambitious National Action Plan in May, as promised. This must include, in particular, a law on human rights due diligence", demands Heydenreich.
Hardly any effective measures to prolong the use of products
Even in the measures to promote longer use of products, the federal government has taken promising approaches such as the creation of the EU legal prerequisite for a VAT concession in favour of resource-saving goods and services (e.g. repairs) out of its plan again. "The federal government's measures are too timid to really push for longer use of appliances," Heydenreich criticises.
On the other hand, it is to be welcomed that the German government is clearly committed to a demanding implementation of the EU regulation on conflict minerals. Heydenreich: "We call on the German government to use all possibilities to create a workable basis for this at EU level in the coming weeks. It must not be left to the companies to decide whether or not they finance bloody conflicts in the mining regions." Since the beginning of February, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU states have been negotiating a regulation on conflict minerals.
The extractive sector repeatedly causes particularly extensive human rights violations such as forced relocations, violent repression or even labour rights violations, including accidental deaths. According to a study commissioned by the former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, most of the business-related human rights allegations (28 per cent) concerned the extraction of raw materials.
Source: Communication from Germanwatch, 02.03.2016
https://germanwatch.org/de/11901
Keywords:
DE-News, Resource efficiency, Environmental policy
The housing shortage is an immense social problem in many large cities and conurbations. At the same time, the building sector has been failing to meet its environmental and climate targets for years. In a recent position paper, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and the Commission for Sustainable Building at the UBA (KNBau) have examined how more affordable housing can be created without unnecessarily harming the environment and health. According to this paper, the most important factor for more environmental protection in housing construction is that the existing building stock is preserved wherever possible or is sensibly converted and repurposed. This is the easiest way to avoid climate emissions and unnecessarily high consumption of raw materials. Today, UBA President Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner presented KNBau's proposals to Federal Minister of Building Klara Geywitz and Federal Minister of the Environment Steffi Lemke in Berlin.
Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke: "Water scarcity and heat as a result of the climate crisis are putting our cities and their inhabitants under stress. What we need are climate-resilient cities with a cleverly planned blue and green infrastructure of water and urban greenery for nature and human recreation. When it comes to much-needed housing, we can at the same time protect the environment andClimateprotect: In view of the enormous demand for resources in the building sector, we must think housing creation, resource conservation and climate adaptation together. If new housing is created primarily in inner cities and on brownfield sites, and existing buildings are renovated and converted, this saves energy, waste and greenhouse gases and reduces land consumption."
Klara Geywitz, Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Building: "Building andClimate protectionmust always be thought of together and socially. To forego climate standards today when building - whether it is a conversion, an extension or a new building - is already unprofitable in the short term and will harm future generations. We need a new orientation. To achieve this, we must move away from focusing on thePrimary energy consumptiontowards a life cycle assessment of new and existing buildings that takes into account the entire greenhouse gas balance. We are already implementing this with the QNG seal. With the upcoming municipal heat planning as an important component of the heat transition and the upcoming major amendment to the Building Code, which will take up many of the demands from this study, we are planning further necessary steps on the way to the triad 'Building - Climate Protection - Social'."
UBA-President Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner: "In addition to the urgently needed new construction, we must focus more on the conversion and reuse of existing buildings. Otherwise we will miss our climate and resource protection targets in the building sector. The socio-ecological transformation of our cities needs a paradigm shift. New housing in existing buildings saves raw materials and protects the open landscape from further urban sprawl. We also need to recycle and loop much more building materials."
Dr Matthias Lerm, Head of the Magdeburg Urban Planning Office and, together with Prof. Christa Reicher, Head of KNBau: "We also advocate establishing the new guiding principle of triple inner development in urban planning. This means that the urban planning of the future must not play off the three pillars of compact building, healthy urban greenery and sustainable mobility against each other: If today's car park courtyards become house gardens again, this must be accompanied by suitable mobility alternatives, i.e. expanded public transport and sharing services as well as additional bicycle lanes and pedestrian areas. And if, instead of small-scale and loosened up, there is more compact and space-saving building in the future, then intensively usable playgrounds and climate-effective green corridors must also be included in the projects".
In order to reduce climate emissions and the consumption of raw materials in construction, KNBau recommends adapting the model building code and various state building codes. In future, they should be oriented towards ambitious sustainability criteria and, for example, provide for the conservation of resources and the priority of existing buildings over new ones. Promoting framework conditions for the use of particularly ecological building materials should also be anchored there, as well as allowing reduced minimum distances for photovoltaic systems on roofs. In addition, legal foundations in state building codes should be expanded so that standards for precautionary measures against hazards to health and the environment can be prescribed.
Source: UBA PM of 20.02.2023
www.umweltbundesamt.de/...dem-wohnraummangel-oekologisch-begegnen
Keywords:
Stock, DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, Recycling, Resource efficiency, Environmental policy, Housing, Housing policy
Düsseldorf. 4.25 terawatts (TWh)! This is how much electricity was produced last year (2017) by the photovoltaic systems installed in North Rhine-Westphalia. This corresponds to the average annual electricity demand of more than 1 million four-person households. In total, there are 8.7 million households in NRW.
At the end of last year, PV systems with a total of around 4.64 megawatt peak (MWpeak) were installed in NRW. Compared to the previous year, this represents an increase of more than 3.5 percent. This means that around 136 kWpeak are installed per square kilometre of state surface in NRW. According to data from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV), there is an average irradiation of 916 kWh per kWpeak per year in the most populous state in Germany. "Photovoltaics has established itself as an attractive option for energy generation due to the technical developments of recent years. The combination of PV with storage technology is also increasingly interesting as a solution for own power consumption in private and industrial applications", says Carl Georg Graf von Buquoy of EnergyAgency.NRW.
Although the construction of PV systems in Germany has been declining in recent years, the construction of solar systems and solar power production have been increasing again for the past two years. The share of electricity generation in Germany from renewable energies was around 38 percent in 2017, with photovoltaics accounting for 7.2 percent nationwide and 2.6 percent in NRW. The PV systems installed in Germany produced a total of around 40 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, thus mathematically covering the annual electricity requirements of over 10.5 million households. With the PV capacity of around 4,640 MWpeak installed in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017, the state ranked third in a Germany-wide comparison behind Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Source: PM EnergyAgency.NRW of 29.1.2018
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, News Blog NRW
