Climate Dialogue: Process optimisation, mobilisation, and communication in local climate action

Climate mitigation at the local level is increasingly gaining in importance in Germany. There is already a variety of initiatives at the local, regional and national level which significantly contribute to emission savings. Since municipal climate mitigation has become one of the key pillars of German climate policy, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) decided to strategically strengthen this policy area as part of the German energy transformation.

With the launch of the Climate Dialogue, a consortium of Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (Difu), ifeu - Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung Heidelberg, Klima-Bündnis, Pestel Institut and Institut EBUS, headed by adelphi, had been commissioned to assist, manage and implement this process. Within the three years of the project, the focus lied on initiating and facilitating a long-term process of mutual learning, continuous education and training including all relevant stakeholders at local level and targeting different types of policy networks and coordination levels. Complementing activities included trainings, workshops and conferences. Surveys and policy briefings on understanding (e.g. through the storytelling method) local transformational processes further added to the project outcome.

Highlight of the three years of "Climate Dialogue" was the International Conference on Climate Action (ICCA2015). Its outcome document, the Hanover Declaration, helped to strengthen local climate action, and was thereafter presented at the COP21 in Paris.