Research projects

Since 2008, the german Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) has been promoting climate protection measures in the municipal sector through the National Climate Protection Initiative (NKI). Accordingly, municipalities are important players in climate protection. However, they have not yet been assigned a concrete role or potential for greenhouse gas reduction. For this purpose, it is necessary to know the concrete scope of action of municipal actors and to define concrete measures. For this reason, the question arises on the one hand what potential the municipalities have to achieve the national climate protection targets and on the other hand how the municipalities can be enabled to use this potential.

It can be observed that only a limited number of municipalities are reached with the support offered by the NKI and that, in particular, the number of projects on strategic climate protection measures has declined in recent years. In addition, there is a risk that, when funding ends, the activities cannot be continued at the same intensity or cannot be made permanent (e.g. staff posts created by financial support).

Thus, the aim of the project is to determine what contribution the municipalities can provide to achieve the German climate protection targets. The results of the project will be used on the one hand to further develop the promotion of municipal climate protection by the federal government through the NKI, and on the other hand to illustrate the effectiveness of municipal climate protection management in order to motivate more municipalities to establish or consolidate municipal climate protection management.

The content of the project consists, for example, of quantifying the municipal climate protection potential, of an analysis of the greater use of municipal obligatory tasks for climate protection, of quantifying the effect of climate protection managers on the use and call for subsidies and on emissions, as well as of determining and, if possible, quantifying further effects of the work of climate protection managers.

To carry out the project, a mix of quantitative methods, such as calculations and statistical evaluations, and qualitative methods with document analysis, interviews and questioning is planned.