Our approach

The climate budget stands for more expedited and efficient decision-making through clear priorities. It promotes transparent, data-based management rather than mere administrative policy.

An open approach to tackling conflicting goals and promoting a culture of “trial and error” help to master challenges flexibly. In addition, the entire political toolbox is used to effectively and efficiently in order to shape climate protection.

Climate policy as a revolution in governance

The climate budget combines climate policy goals with digitalisation and governmental reform.

Digitalized climate-based governance

The climate budget is driving a revolution in governance. Digitised monitoring of climate indicators – once it has been set up – enables data-based, transparent decision-making with minimal effort, which in turn reduces bureaucracy.

Cooperation instead of silo mentality

The climate budget’s organisational structure leads to intensive cooperation between administrative units (“mainstreaming climate”) and thus becomes a driver of state-of-the-art governmentalaction. In the process, this helps to meet the expectations of citizens and encourages their participation.

Climate protection as a priority

Climate protection is aligned with legal goals and thus becomes a central steering task in the city government. This creates a clear framework for action that also provides businesses and citizens with planning (and investment) security.

Elements of the climate budget for Berlin

New climate monitoring.

In order to shape an effective climate policy, we need an implementation-oriented approach to climate accounting. Berlin’s current greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting comes with a delay of two years, which is an impediment to an effective management of climate governance. An implementation-oriented method of accounting should , by contrast, evolve around the following questions: What is my radius of action? What can I directly influence as a city or state? Action-oriented, polluter-based balancing enables more precise analysis and management. Important parameters and digital systems provide the necessary data for political decisions. A GHG accounting method that does this is already being used at international level. The timely publication of climate data (“Climate Dashboard”) offers an interface for stakeholders in the scientific community and civil society.

Modern climate governance.

Current challenges call for a new climate governance. While structures such as the city’s Climate Council and the Senate’s Committee on Climate Protection already exist in Berlin, they are not sufficient to meet the tasks at hand. Without a powerful implementation structure, decisions will remain ineffective. One potential solution could be a climate secretariat that acts as a central clearing house. Oslo’s Climate Agency is an example of such an office that supports political decision-makers and has extensive powers to steer the process across all relevant administrative bodies and districts. As such, it supports the climate managers of the districts and drives strategic planning.

Efficient processes.

Instead of setting up a special fund for climate projects, climate policy is strategically anchored across all relevant fields of action. The processes for planning, decision-making, implementation and monitoring must be clearly structured. We can learn from Oslo by linking the GHG reduction planning of the relevant ministries with budget planning. The finance administration thus becomes an important driving force of climate policy, ensuring that “net zero” is equal priority as the “black zero” – i.e. Germany’s balanced budget. A crucial component of this linking of administrative priorities is that the budget would only be adopted if the “climate budget” demonstrates sufficient CO2 savings.

Diverse instruments.

A variety of (climate) policy instruments are available to promote climate protection in the government, public companies, businesses and households. These include a review of public procurement policy, the climate-neutral refurbishing of public property and the alignment of existing funding programmes with climate protection goals. In addition, it is important to create new framework conditions that incentivizes climate-friendly action. Clear framework conditions mean planning and investment security for businesses and households.

Clear communication.

In order to build public awareness and acceptance of climate protection priorities, it is essential to establish a new narrative. The preservation of our livelihoods must become the first priority for politics and government. The urgency and the resulting changes and burdens must be clearly communicated and positively advertised. At the same time, the role of ordinary citizens in contributing to positive change must be highlighted. New democratic formats such as a climate citizens’ assembly can provide an important means of achieving this. Transparent information on the website, regular reports on the climate budget, webinars and open online consultation hours can promote citizen participation and networking with the scientific community and other cities.

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F.A.Q.

Why such a special role for climate policy?

Climate protection affects all aspects of our lives and is crucial for a sustainable future. While education, health and safety are clearly important priorities, without a livable planet these issues have no viable perspective in the long term. The climate budget secures our future – both at ecological and at social level.

What does CO2e mean?

Greenhouse gases (GHG) are trace gases that contribute to the warming of our planet. The current human-induced increase in the concentration of various greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), amplifies the natural greenhouse effect and leads to global warming. CO2 is the best-known and most common greenhouse gas. However, there are other important greenhouse gases with a lasting impact such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Their warming effect exceeds that of carbon dioxide many times. In order to be able to calculate the overall effect of the man-made greenhouse gas effect, the other gases are converted into so-called CO2 equivalents. i.e. CO2e.

What is the difference between monitoring and greenhouse gas accounting?

Monitoring is a process that accompanies the implementation of climate policy measures. It determines whether implementation is taking place on time, within budget and in the intended way. It records activities and their results. GHG accounting is essentially a periodic inventory that allows the current level of greenhouse gas emissions to be compared with the target or planned values. It is also possible to calculate the greenhouse gas impact of individual measures over an extended period of time. However, this has hardly been practiced in Germany so far. Commonly practiced GHG accounting is usually not based on individual measures (bottom-up), but instead derived from general energy consumption (top-down).

Will the introduction of a climate budget bring about high costs?

No, many of the associated instruments are already available. There is a need for bundling activities and consolidating the management of implementation in individual sectors. To this end, a powerful unit with qualified personnel must be set up. The establishment of the monitoring system means a one-time expense for the corresponding services, which subsequently can be maintained with relatively little effort. Such a monitoring system provides a basis for targeted measures and cost-benefit considerations, so that greater GHG reduction can be achieved at the same cost.

New Insights: “Democracy and Revolution” in the 21st Century

New Insights: “Democracy and Revolution” in the 21st Century
In “Democracy and Revolution”, Hedwig Richter and Bernd Ulrich analyse how the premises of “normal” have changed in the 21st century. They argue that although we continue to act according to 20th-century rules, the current political framework requires new perspectives. An insightful and thought-provoking book!

Oslo’s Climate Budget

Oslo’s establishment of a climate budget in 2017 as a governance instrument for climate policy makes the city a pioneer in the transparent and effective implementation of climate policy. The climate budget shows the measures and instruments that are being implemented in order to reduce Oslo’s emissions. It is thus an integral part of the city’s municipal budget. The climate budget puts climate efforts on the agenda in all budget deliberations and includes them in the city’s overarching budget documents. Responsibility for the implementation of measures and instruments includes reporting obligations that carry equal weight as financial reporting.

Hamburg has a systematic climate monitoring system

The City of Hamburg has set up a “Climate Control Centre and a climate monitoring system for purposes of communicating and managing progress towards the climate targets. It includes, among other things, measures and financial controlling as well as CO2 monitoring. Greenhouse gas emissions are balanced on the basis of the “polluter pays principle”. This is a top-down balancing instrument based on the energy balance, which is prepared nationwide in accordance with the specifications of the state working group on energy balances. In addition, the Climate Control Centre has been coordinating bottom-up monitoring of measures for over ten years, which is intended to assess the CO2 effect of individual measures at an early stage.