Masterplan 100% Climate Protection

On 11 and 12 November 2014, stakeholders and decision-makers, including municipalities, businesses, and scientists, met at the congress "100% Renewable Energy Regions" in Kassel to exchange best practices for the energy transition. In a forum on the "Masterplan 100% Climate Protection" chaired by Arne Riedel (Ecologic Institute), three participants from counties Osnabrück and Steinfurt as well as the municipality Neumarkt discussed their approaches providing insights into the ongoing process of implementation.

The forum started off with an input by Dr. Hans-Joachim Ziesing (CEO of the Working Group on Energy Balances and member of the expert commission on the monitoring of the energy transition) who set the scene for the Masterplan-programme within the ambitions of the German federal level. Dr. Ziesing also gave an introduction to first challenges of the masterplan municipalities.

The panel members - Ruth Dorner (City of Neumarkt i.d. Oberpfalz), Silke Wesselmann (County of Steinfurt) und Andreas Witte (County of Osnabrück) - followed up with insights on the level of masterplan implementation in their respective municipality and cited successful measures.

Discussion and audience questions were chaired by Arne Riedel (Ecologic Institute) and covered a range of hot topics, such as political support of the process on the municipality level, financing of implementation measures, coordination by the masterplan management, cooperation between counties and municipalities as well as possibilities and limits of ambitious climate targets.

Many other municipalities showed interest in ambitious activities for climate protection and participated in a lively discussion that went on in an active exchange on specific issues after the forum.