The German capital has set a new precedent by becoming the first state to adopt a Climate Adaptation Act. The law says that the city should have one million trees in fifteen years time, to be financed in part by the federal government’s special fund.
Berlin plans to plant hundreds of thousands of additional trees in the next 15 years to be better prepared for climate change.
This comes as the result of the capital’s new Climate Adaptation Act (Klimaanpassungsgesetz), which was approved with a broad majority this week by the Berlin House of Representatives.
According to a report by Taz, in doing so Berlin has become the first German state with a climate adaptation law.
This also marks the first time Berlin’s House of Representatives voted to adopt a citizens’ initiative as law without making significant changes. The law was based on the BaumEntscheid initiative which gained enough signatures, and was brought to Berlin’s parliament for approval.
Every party except for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had supported the act.
What does the law say?
According to the law, Berlin is to have over one million trees by 2040.
Berlin’s Senate estimates that there are currently around 440,000 street trees in the city, meaning that the city’s tree population needs to be more than doubled in the next 15 years to meet the goal.
The cost of planting all these trees is estimated at €3.2 billion. Of this, €2 billion are to be financed from Berlin’s share of the federal government’s special fund, reported Tagesspiegel.
Further climate adaptation measures are also planned, including adding more green spaces, unsealing pavements in places and planning for sensible uses of rainwater.
The citizens’ initiative “BaumEntscheid” sees the new Climate Adaptation Act as a milestone on the way to making Berlin greener and thus more resistant to global warming.
Spokesman Heinrich Strößenreuther said that after the parliamentary decision, implementation must begin quickly.
“Time is an important factor in climate adaptation,” he said.
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The environmental policy spokesman of the Green parliamentary group, Benedikt Lux, called on the CDU and SPD to implement the law quickly.
“You don’t have to be a botanist to know that the law won’t grow trees by itself,” he said.
German cities are stepping up their climate goals
A citizen-led initiative in Hamburg also had an impact on the northern city-states climate policy last month, when a referendum called the Hamburg Future Decision (Hamburger Zukunftsentscheid) was passed by city residents.
The referendum is intended to strengthen the city’s climate adaptation goals: bringing forward the goal of climate neutrality to 2040, creating concrete annual goals between now and then to maintain transparency and ensuring that goals and related initiatives are socially responsible.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
