Association of the German Wood-Based Panel Industry e.V.
3:08 min. published on 8.3.2017
The German Association of Cities, the Global Parliament of Mayors and the international cities network ICLEI have joined forces to form a Cities Alliance to accompany the German G7 Presidency. The alliance is organising a conference on Tuesday, 3 May a U7 Mayors Summitwhich brings together high-level representatives of cities from the G7 countries. Representatives of the media are invited to follow the event virtually.
The international exchange is under the heading "Engaging the Urban World - Cities as Engines of Change for Peace, Democracy and Sustainability".. It is the most important event of cities in the framework of the German G7 Presidency. A joint declaration by the cities will also be adopted: In the „Urban7 Mayors Declaration“ the city leaders from the G7 countries will present their expectations of politics and business in order to meet the global challenges on the ground.
Participating and speaking as the German delegation will be:
The Mayors Round Table is also attended by city leaders from the G7 countries USA, Japan, Canada, Italy, the UK, France and the EU. Among the topics discussed at the event will be: Consequences of the war in Ukraine, role of cities in multi-level governance, impact of climate change, status of democracy, sustainable urban development, municipal development cooperation and the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Cities Summit is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW) of Engagement Global.
You will find the programme in the appendix. The event, which will last around two hours, will start at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 May. You can register and follow the event virtually at this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9CyoaqfGQqaf2gSGtpMhKw
A press release of the German Association of Cities and its partners will also be published for the event. Further information is available on the Summit website at: https://g7u7.org/
Keywords:
DE-News, Communities, SDG 2030, City, Environmental policy
The exhibition marking the halfway point of the IBA Heidelberg has opened: A rich accompanying programme attracted almost 1000 visitors from Thursday to Saturday, many of whom were visiting the exhibition venue, the Mark Twain Center in Heidelberg's Südstadt, for the first time.
The IBA SUMMIT, the biennial meeting of mayors, university rectors and urban planners from international "Knowledge Pearls" in Heidelberg, heralded the opening days of the IBA interim presentation on 26 April. Prof. Dr Eckart Würzner, Lord Mayor of the City of Heidelberg welcomed the guests from Stanford, Cambridge, Lund and Leuven with an introduction to the IBA: "The IBA Heidelberg is on an excellent path. It demonstrates how various strengths of our city can be interwoven. These include, for example, promoting education, developing environmentally friendly mobility, creating new living space and promoting climate-neutral urban development. The IBA has made a significant contribution to the sense of a new beginning in Heidelberg.
The vernissage of the exhibition took place at the Mark Twain Center on the evening of 27 April. Gunther Adler, State Secretary for Building, Housing and Urban Development in the Federal Ministry of the Interior spoke on the occasion about the "IBA" format from the federal government's point of view. According to Adler, the IBA is an important piece of German building culture that enjoys international renown and is worth every effort to pursue its claim to excellence. The IBA tradition encompasses many aspects: International relevance, next-practice projects, sustainable impact on the region and building culture standards. For the IBAs currently underway, it is sometimes difficult to fully meet these claims to excellence under the given framework conditions. "Nevertheless, we are seeing overwhelming results, which encourage us as a federal government to continue the quality offensive together - also within the framework of the IBA Heidelberg," the State Secretary emphasised. "We need the IBA to show us how we can find answers to relevant questions of current urban development using new and unusual methods and means - this is more urgent today than ever. The IBA's courage to experiment and to go beyond existing boundaries is important to address the quality of living, working and living in our cities in the future."
Jürgen Odszuck, First Mayor of the City of HeidelbergThe IBA's interim presentation provides an excellent overview of what it is doing in Heidelberg: it gives important new impulses on how we can further develop Heidelberg as the knowledge city of tomorrow. It promotes excellent building projects in our city. And it offers innovative approaches on how we can design processes more effectively and lead to even better results."
Michael Braum, Managing Director of the IBA Heidelberg, was pleased about the great response to the exhibition opening and welcomed the guests: "Innovation in the knowledge society uses its intellectual and creative resources. This changes the value system of the industrial society, in which diligence stood above creativity. Today, in the knowledge society, creativity may be more important than diligence. This also has implications for the city. Our cities will change more dynamically in the 21st century than they did in the course of industrialisation. This requires a new way of thinking in urban planning and architecture. The IBA would like to make a contribution to this, which can now be seen in this exhibition."
Carl Zillich, Curatorial Director of the IBA Heidelbergexplained the exhibition concept: "Before we present realised building projects for the knowledge city of tomorrow in 2022, we have focused at the halfway point on the actors, processes and ideas of the first five years. Together with the exhibition makers from 'Stiftung Freizeit', we have developed analogue and at the same time interactive forms of presentation. Thus, for different interests, individual glimpses behind the scenes of the IBA, the urban development of international science cities, but also Heidelberg institutions and initiatives are on offer. Numerous architectural models, pictures and plans have already aroused curiosity about the construction sites, which are now marked all over the city."
The opening days closed on Saturday, 28 April with a colourful programme, during which many young families in particular got an impression of the exhibition and the IBA projects.
The exhibition of the IBA interim presentation is now open until 8 July daily from Tuesdays to Sundays from 15.00 - 20.00, including public holidays.
More information about the exhibition, guided tours, registration or booking of individual group tours at:
www.iba.heidelberg.de
Keywords:
News Blog Baden-Württemberg
Difu city survey "OB-Barometer 2020" gives municipalities' assessment of the future*
Berlin/Cologne. Climate protection and adaptation to the consequences of climate change will become increasingly important for cities. This is one of the findings of the survey of (Lord) Mayors of large German cities* conducted by the German Institute of Urban Affairs in January and February 2020. Almost two-thirds of the respondents named climate protection as an important municipal issue for the future. This means that the number of mayors who attribute an increase in importance to this field of municipal policy action has more than tripled compared to the previous year. Future surveys will show how strongly this result was influenced by the protests of the 'Fridays for Future' movement.
More than half of the respondents also see a growing need for action in the area of mobility. This topic, which already ranked second among the future topics last year, has thus once again gained in importance for city leaders. This may also have something to do with the fact that urban mobility is an essential aspect of municipal climate protection. The top future topic of the two previous years, digitalization, is in third place in the survey among the most important future topics for municipal policy. A good third of respondents believe that digitisation will become more important for cities in the next five years. Other municipal policy issues to which the mayors attach particularly high relevance for the future are the creation of affordable housing, the financial situation of the cities and the strengthening of the economy.
City leaders agree that the future challenges facing cities will require a high level of funding. This is particularly true for the topics of mobility and climate protection. Almost 90 percent of those for whom these are key issues for the future expect to have to make large or very large investments in these areas. The situation is similar in the areas of digitisation and the creation of affordable housing: here, around three quarters of the city leaders who see digitisation and housing among the most important future issues for cities still consider the future financing requirements in these policy areas to be high or very high.
* The survey was conducted before the Corona pandemic in Germany pushed other issues into the background. Even if normality should have returned to some extent in the cities after the state of emergency, the view of the political decision-makers on the municipal world will be different. Difu will therefore publish the full results of the OB-Barometer 2020 at a later date, possibly linked to current surveys that include "Corona aspects". This report therefore focuses primarily on the sub-area of "future issues".
Source: PM Difu from 12.5.2020
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, Climate emergency, Climate protection, Communities, New books and studies, City, Transition Town, Environmental policy
With the targets for the Climate Action Plan 2050, the German government is pursuing ambitious plans. For the building sector, this means that a virtually climate-neutral building stock is to be achieved by 2050. The Federal Building Ministry has launched pilot projects, such as Efficiency Houses Plus in existing buildings, which are investigating ways to achieve this goal in a practical manner. By 2030, the political framework conditions should be designed in such a way that the requirements for a virtually climate-neutral building stock are already in place. The energy standard for the construction of new residential and non-residential buildings must be further developed by 2030. Likewise, from 2030, the energy-efficient refurbishment of buildings must largely fulfil the requirement of a virtually climate-neutral building stock.
To ensure that the necessary energy-efficient refurbishment and new construction measures are sustainable, the focus must be on holistic planning approaches that combine forward-looking architectural design and utilisation quality with energy-efficient measures. Special care must be taken with energy refurbishment measures to protect our building fabric that is worth preserving, including those that are not subject to protection under monument protection legislation. The diversity of façades must be protected.
For all buildings, whether new or old, the following applies: The compatibility with the building culture must be examined on a case-by-case basis, and various ecological, economic, technical and design solutions must be sought. Standardisation, shapelessness and arbitrariness should be avoided. They lead to a loss of identity-forming building culture.
Objectives: Extract from the fields of action
The Climate Action Plan is based on the guiding principle of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by the middle of the century. For the year 2030, it reaffirms the overall target of a greenhouse gas reduction of at least 55 per cent compared to 1990, while at the same time breaking this overall target down into individual sectors for the first time. The plan thus provides clear guidance for all sectors.
Of central importance is the reorganisation of the Energy industry. Important steps have already been taken in this sector with the energy transition. Renewable electricity will also enable other sectors - such as transport - to move away from climate-damaging fossil fuels. Renewable energies will be further expanded and coal-fired power generation will be reduced accordingly. A new "Growth, Structural Change and Regional Development" commission is to develop a mix of instruments. This is intended to help the regions and sectors that are particularly affected by the structural change associated with the energy transition.
At Buildings there is a "roadmap for a virtually climate-neutral building stock". Buildings are particularly durable, which is why the course for 2050 must be set early on. The reduction should be 66-67 per cent by 2030. This will be achieved through ambitious new building standards, long-term refurbishment strategies and the gradual phasing out of fossil-fuelled heating systems.
The Transport sector will contribute 40 to 42 per cent to the 2030 climate target. A series of climate protection concepts will identify measures to achieve this, such as a climate protection concept for road transport. Alternative drive systems, local public transport, rail transport and cycling and walking will play an important role, as will a digitalisation strategy.
In the area of Industry the reduction should be 49 to 51 per cent. The German government will launch a research, development and market launch programme to reduce previously unavoidable industrial process emissions.
For land use and Forestrywhich are not included in the assessment of target fulfilment, the focus is on maintaining and improving the sink capacity of the forest. In addition, sustainable forest management and the associated use of wood, the preservation of permanent grassland, the protection of peat soils and the climate potential of natural forest development.
Link:
www.klimaschutzplan2050.de/handlungsfelder
Source: PM BMUB No. 280/16 from 14 November 2016
Keywords:
Stock, DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, Mobility, New books and studies, Quarters, Settlements, Environmental policy, Housing policy, XXL settlements
