2:15 min. published at 9.4.2017
Mission 2020 is a global campaign, blending radical collaboration and relentless optimism to put emissions on a downward path by 2020. When it comes to our climate, timing is everything, and we have a game-changing opportunity to make the big changes now. Let's not be late for this turning point, so future generations can live in a climate safe world.
Directed & Produced by Bert & Bertie
At the end of the UN conference Habitat III in Quito (Ecuador), the environmental and development organization Germanwatch draws a mixed balance. "Around 50,000 people took part in the conference. This alone shows that cities are considered to be of great importance on the way to a sustainable world. It is very good that the adopted New Urban Agenda recognises cities as important players in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate targets," says Lisa Junghans, expert on climate change, adaptation and urban transformation at Germanwatch. However, she qualifies: "The New Urban Agenda is not concrete enough in parts. Citizens will not feel directly addressed and there is a complete lack of measurable goals and criteria for monitoring the success of the agenda. It remains to be seen to what extent the agenda really supports cities in their development towards greater sustainability and a higher quality of life. Civil society in particular will have a key role to play in the coming years to ensure that the principles adopted here for future urban development have an impact."
Habitat III was the third World Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development after 1976 and 1996 and is intended to define guidelines for future urban development. Despite the highly participatory process in the preparation of the New Urban Agenda, the negotiations in the final phase took place, as expected, exclusively within the circle of government negotiators. Junghans: "Although this process is a classic UN process driven by states, it is problematic that city representatives are excluded from the final decisions on their own development."
Germanwatch is particularly positive about the fact that the final document grants cities more self-determination and ownership in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and that "no one is to be left behind" - a reference to the particularly vulnerable population groups that must be included in the planning and implementation of future urban development policy.
The hope that a larger number of cities would lead the way with voluntary commitments, for example towards climate neutrality, has unfortunately not materialised. "Although there have been some very good announcements from civil society as well as from Germany and the EU regarding the creation of housing and climate-friendly mobility, concrete announcements from local governments themselves have been very limited," says Junghans.
Source: Germanwatch press release, 20 October 2016
Keywords:
DE-News, Communities, Quarters, SDG 2030, Settlements, City, UN (United Nations), Housing policy
With the switch to WordPress and the update of the individual project representations, there were many innovations. In detail these are:
- there were 55 new settlement projects listed in the web directory
- significantly expanded and updated the area for settlement projects the "In the Making" are
- the previous "Bundesländervergleich" (the last one was from 2009) has been updated due to the newly added settlement projects and has been updated with a chronological and size allocation as further statistical analysis facility adds
The database-supported siedlungen.eu offers new technical possibilities:
- Filtering of projects by keywords and categories
– Tags-clouds
– Photo galleries
- most photos are displayed much larger and in higher resolution than in the previous html version of oekosiedlungen.de
- many new photos can be seen in the photo galleries, which were previously in offline archives
Furthermore, the data connection was changed to the secure and certified "https://" in August and the database was moved to a faster server.
Keywords:
sdg21 news
1:47 min, date: 11/27/2020
With the Innovation Award, the economic administrations of the two states of Berlin and Brandenburg annually honor innovative and outstanding work from the region. With the involvement of business enterprises and other institutions as private partners, the prize was and is also a prize of the economy for the economy. Since it was first awarded in 1984 (since 1992 jointly with Brandenburg), there have been more than 160 prize winners and over 4,000 applications. In 2020, the number of applications rose to 221, once again an increase over the previous year, despite more difficult conditions due to the Corona situation - a clear sign of the great innovative potential of the two states.
Lumenion GmbH: In order to generate sustainable renewable energy, the company developed the Lumenion storage system. It stores electricity as heat at 650°C. The stored thermal energy can then be used in a time-delayed and cost-effective manner as process heat for industry or as district heating.
More info
https://lumenion.com/
www.solarserver.de/...hochtemperatur-stahlspeichertechnologie-fuer-gruene-prozesswaerme
Keywords:
100% EEs, DE-News, Energy storage, Movies, Movies < 4 Min, Research
CO2-Emissions should be reduced by 65 percent over the next ten years compared to 1990 in order to achieve climate neutrality - Energy system must be converted to 100 percent renewable energies by 2040 - Investment of 3,000 billion euros required to meet European Green Deal and Paris climate targets - German EU Council Presidency can ensure that Corona aid packages link economic stimulus with climate protection
The European Green Deal sets the bar very high: Europe is to become climate neutral by 2050. However, these targets can only be achieved if CO2-emissions by 2030 not only by 40 percent compared to 1990, but by 65 percent. To achieve this, energy production would have to be completely converted to renewable energies by 2040. The necessary investments are high, but they will pay off. These are the most important results of a new study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). On the occasion of the German EU Council Presidency, the economists from DIW Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin involved in the study have calculated under which circumstances the goals of the European Green Deal could be achieved and what costs this would entail. "So far, the EU Commission has assumed a CO2-reduction target of 40 percent. But this will not make Europe climate-neutral by 2050, as our calculations show. The targets must be much more ambitious," says study author Claudia Kemfert.
The authors have therefore compared a baseline scenario of 40 percent with a climate protection scenario that assumes a CO2-reduction of 65 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, as demanded by some groups in the EU Parliament. In fact, the calculations show that under these circumstances, the climate neutrality targeted in the Green Deal could be achieved. "However, this is only possible if we switch our energy system to 100 percent renewables - and do so already by 2040," says study author Karlo Hainsch. Even with a complete switch to renewables, the energy supply would remain secure, as the study's hourly calculations show - even for countries that still rely heavily on fossil or nuclear energy, such as Poland and France.
"The German EU presidency could kill two birds with one stone: economic recovery and climate protection." Christian von Hirschhausen
Such a scenario would save around 60 billion tonnes of CO2. "However, a switch to 100 percent renewable energy cannot be had for free. Extensive investments will have to be made," says study author Leonard Göke. According to the calculations, the investment required for renewable energies amounts to around 3000 billion euros. This is an enormous amount, but it is offset by savings of almost 2000 billion euros alone, which would no longer have to be spent on importing fossil fuels. Since both the EU and most national governments in Europe have put together extensive aid packages because of the Corona crisis, these could form a good basis for supporting the necessary investments.
"The German EU Presidency could kill two birds with one stone: economic recovery and climate protection," says study author Christian von Hirschhausen. "To do so, it must ensure that the extensive stimulus packages under the European Green Deal are used for investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency." In addition, there is still the Just Transition Fund, which the EU has set up to provide financial support for structural change in the regions of Europe that are affected very differently by the measures. "Particular care must be taken to ensure that the funds are channelled into sustainable climate-neutral projects and not used for the de facto stabilisation of fossil fuel development paths," warns study author Pao-Yu Oei. The current economic crisis, which is setting new parameters worldwide and across sectors, could now be used to decisively tackle the necessary measures towards climate neutrality.
Source: DIW press release of July 8, 2020
Keywords:
Renewable, Funding, Climate protection, Mobility, Sustainable management, News Blog Europe (without DE), Resource efficiency, Transition Town, Environmental policy
