In Sweden, a residential building is being built that is specially designed for cyclists. Malmö is considered the most bicycle-friendly city in Sweden. 30 percent of the inhabitants here use a bicycle every day, and bike sharing is booming. Soon, however, Malmö will have even more to offer cyclists: In the middle of the city centre, the first house is currently being built that is completely adapted to the needs of cycling residents.
How local initiatives and associations can be supported in the development and implementation of climate protection projects at neighbourhood level was the topic of an expert meeting on 4 February at the Pestel Institute in Hanover. The participants from science and practice discussed a new funding concept of the BMUB, which is intended to support the local implementation of climate protection within the framework of the National Climate Protection Initiative.
Climate protection and quality of life
The funding concept "Short Paths for Climate Protection" aims to promote the development of concrete offers for climate-friendly everyday activities. These can be, for example, projects that critically examine consumption, use and ownership, such as repair cafés or rental stations. Neighbourhood initiatives and participatory actions for more climate protection in everyday life are also to be promoted. The "Short Paths for Climate Protection" projects are intended to avoid greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time promote neighbourhood cohesion and improve the quality of life in neighbourhoods and communities.
Local, regional, national - expansion of the National Climate Initiative
The funding concept is supported within the framework of the National Climate Initiative (NKI, www.klimaschutz.de) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment. The funding would be a strategic expansion of the NKI's range of services by also supporting local initiatives with their ideas for direct citizen participation in the future.
Further information on the BMUB's National Climate Initiative is available at www.klimaschutz.de.
Contact person/partner:
Angelica Couple
ifeu - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg
Joint measures and targets agreed to achieve climate goals
30.06.2020 - 16 players in the German financial sector, with assets of more than €5.5 trillion and over 46 million customer connections in Germany, have signed a voluntary commitment to align their loan and investment portfolios in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. Through the agreed measurement, publication and target setting to reduce the emissions associated with the loan and investment portfolios, the financial sector intends to make a contribution to climate protection and support the sustainable and future-oriented further development of the economy. This brings the German financial centre one step closer to the goal set by the German government at the beginning of 2019 of making Germany one of the leading locations for sustainable finance.
This initiative, which originated in the banking sector of the financial sector, aims to play an active role in shaping one of the most important societal tasks for future sustainability, namely the successful societal transformation to limit climate change. The signatories align their respective products and services as well as their commitments and initiatives accordingly in order to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and to aim for the 1.5 degree target by financing the transformation towards a low-emission and climate-resilient economy and society. At the same time, active support for the transformation will strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of the companies financed and reduce sustainability and default risks for the banks.
Specifically, this means that by the end of 2022, each signatory will develop and implement mutually acceptable methodologies to measure the climate impact of its credit and investment portfolios and then manage them in line with national and international climate targets. The agreement applies only to those investment portfolios that are not the subject of fund or mandate business. The fund and mandate business will be taken into account gradually without any fixed timeframe.
The signatories want to support each other in collecting the necessary emissions data and developing methods for measurement and approaches for managing the banking business in line with the targets. In order to meet the shared responsibility and that of each actor, each signatory commits to report annually (e.g. within its existing reporting formats) on individual progress towards implementation.
The impetus for this voluntary commitment came from a group of financial institutions initiated by Triodos Bank and at the same time via a WWF bank working group. Since March, these two groups of banks have merged the previously parallel discussions into the present voluntary commitment. This is open to all financial actors for adoption and signature.
The wide range of initial signatories in terms of company size (from large banks to small specialist banks) and affiliation to different areas of the financial sector (e.g. state banks, commercial banks, sustainability banks, foreign banks and pension funds), shows that this challenge is widely accepted and that implementation by financial players is possible regardless of size or specific asset classes.
In the international context, the Climate Agreement (June 2019), the Collective Commitment to Climate Action (UN Climate Summit in September 2019) and, in the context of the 25th Climate Conference (December 2019), a voluntary commitment by the Spanish financial sector have already been signed. All of these agreements have comparable structures and target levels on which the German voluntary commitment now made builds. Comparability with the other international agreements enables international financial institutions in particular to develop uniform processes and standards and ensures that the greatest possible impact can be achieved efficiently and without redundancies.
5th Symposium on Citizen Energy & Energy Cooperatives in NRW
Photo: EnergyAgency.NRW
Recklinghausen. Energy in the hands of citizens: This was the topic of the specialist conference on citizen energy & energy cooperatives in North Rhine-Westphalia on Thursday, 6 December, in Recklinghausen. Around 80 stakeholders in community energy met there to exchange experiences and transfer knowledge. The 5th symposium is a cooperation of the Cooperative Association - Association of Regions and the EnergyAgency.NRW.
Marlies Diephaus from the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalisation and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia kicked off the conference by emphasising the importance of citizen energy companies: "The energy transition is a major challenge that must be shaped in a positive and forward-looking way here in North Rhine-Westphalia. To this end, a reliable framework must be created in which all stakeholders and affected parties can find their place. Last but not least, the financial participation of citizens in various forms also plays a central role. It can contribute to the acceptance of this project of the century.
In the Raiffeisen Year 2018 - the anniversary year of the cooperative idea - around 20 million people in Germany are members of a cooperative. In the field of citizen energy, too, more and more people are discovering this form of joint economic activity. "The global energy turnaround is only possible at all through local action. Here, citizens, organised in citizen energy societies, are both drivers and advocates. This is where co-determination and regional participation happen locally," explained Dr Frank-Michael Baumann, Managing Director of EnergyAgency.NRW.
Dominik Kitzinger, Division Manager at the Association of Cooperatives - Verband der Regionen e. V., emphasised: "In North Rhine-Westphalia, around 100 energy cooperatives are active as operators of generation capacities - from photovoltaic to wind energy plants - as well as around 150 citizen energy companies of other legal forms. Nationwide, more than 41 percent of investments in renewable energy come from civic engagement. If Germany wants to meet its climate targets, it can only do so with this local commitment."
In addition to projects from the areas of photovoltaics, local heating and wind, the focus was also on the mobility transition. Here, the participants agreed that e-mobility must go hand in hand with the energy transition. Citizen energy companies and cooperatives must therefore be strengthened through cooperation and transformation. Cooperatives that already market car sharing, the operation of charging infrastructures and jointly produced electricity were presented as best-practice examples. There are around 40 energy cooperatives active in these areas throughout NRW.
Despite the growing interest in cooperative management, the number of new energy cooperatives founded has declined in recent years. René Groß from the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association blames the changed legal framework conditions for this, but also the complex demands on the mostly voluntarily organised civil societies. In this context, the conference participants also debated the controversial effects of legislation at national and European level, such as through the Energy Collection Act and the new EU Directive as well as the Renewable Energies Directive.
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