The integrated strategy for climate protection covers the areas of energy supply, buildings, and traffic as well as urban management and public relations. It makes concrete suggestions for planning and action for the time frames up to 2020 and 2050, in order to reach the city’s target to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by twenty percent below 2005 levels. Beyond that, the strategy is to point out possibilities to further reduce emissions and to adapt to the unavoidable climate change.
“The City of Potsdam takes the issues of climate change and climate protection very seriously,” says project leader Fritz Reusswig, who is in charge of consumer and city research at PIK. Reusswig cites the city’s Climate Council and the Coordination Site Climate Protection as good examples. Furthermore, there is a well organised network of committed and competent citizens in Potsdam, who have created various initiatives, for instance the Energy Forum Potsdam. “We are well prepared to stick to the schedule of developing a climate protection strategy by this summer,” says Reusswig. As a sociologist, he is especially interested in embedding ambitious climate policies in the local societal context.
“We are very happy with the city’s decision,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of PIK. The paradigm of thinking globally and acting locally has gained even more importance after the Copenhagen conference ended with no clear mandate for global climate protection. “Furthermore, the project emphasizes the institute’s strategic decision to strengthen its research on the level of cities,” Schellnhuber continues.
PIK will handle project coordination and public relations. Policymakers and administrative officials, companies and citizens are to be involved in the research and to be given the opportunity to add perspectives and suggestions of their own. The project partners are:
- Arbeitsgemeinschaft Umbau Stadt GbR
- BLS Energieplan GmbH
- BSF Swissphoto GmbH
- FH-Osnabrück
- GEOkomm-networks e.V., Kompetenznetzwerk Geoinformationswirtschaft
- IVU Traffic Technologies AG
- Leifeld Unternehmensberatung GmbH
- LUP - Luftbild Umwelt Planung GmbH
- VMZ Betreibergesellschaft mbH
For further information, please contact the PIK press office:
Phone: +49 331 288 25 07
E-mail: press@pik-potsdam.de
