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Klimaschutzkonzept für den Kreis Nordfriesland : Vertiefungsband ; die Energie- und CO2-Bilanz
(2011)
Shifting baselines : the interdependency of local and national policies to reduce GHG emissions
(2013)
Climate change and thus low-carbon transitions are global challenges, which require commitment and effort on all political levels. As international climate politics has approached its limits over the last two decades, the role of cities has simultaneously gained in importance. Many cities1 worldwide have committed to ambitious climate protection targets, which often exceed national targets. However, cities cannot act in isolation. Their opportunities for action are embedded in an (inter)national policy framework, which may either support or hinder local actions. This gives rise to the question: which opportunities for climate protection do cities really have in a political system of multi-level governance?
This question can be illustrated using the city of Hamburg as an example for the German climate policy regime. The city aims to reduce its annual CO2 emissions by 2 million metric tons and attempts to quantify the impact of local and national policies and actions using a bottom-up monitoring approach. We therefore analyse more than 400 local actions with respect to the induced CO2 emission reductions. We also take a closer look at national and European policies and their impacts on local energy use and emissions. In total, 15 policies and instruments - broadly ranging from instruments to foster energy efficiencyin residential and non-residential buildings, in appliances and in the transport sector, to support renewable energy sources (including biofuels) and to uptake CHP - are considered.
Our approach consists in measuring separately the impact of local and national policies and actions on urban CO2 emissions. While the city of Hamburg has implemented many policies and actions, our results show that, a significant proportion of its CO2 reduction is due to national policies, in the context of the German "Energiewende", which cannot or can only indirectly be influenced by the city. The results imply that local commitment and effort is essential in addressing the global challenge, yet ambitious targets can only be met in the presence of a supportive national policy framework. The analysis shows that many policies and measures implemented at national level require supportive structures and activities at local level in order to bridge information and implementation gaps of these measures.
Policy evaluation is widely considered important for assessing policies for effectiveness and impact. Municipalities are among the political actors implementing energy and climate policy. Yet, few municipalities have introduced adequate instruments to monitor the effectiveness of their actions. Often, municipal actors consider local greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories to be sufficient to monitor the impact of their actions. This paper points out why the expectations placed on local GHG inventories as a monitoring instrument can rarely be met in practice. On the basis of German examples, it shall be shown that a thorough calculation of actual local energy and GHG reductions attributable to local efforts is often only partially possible, and is complicated by external factors. A supplementary approach to the top-down method is to evaluate local programmes from the bottom-up. This paper discusses efforts to develop an instrument for a bottom-up monitoring of the city of Hamburg's Climate Action Plan.
Belgien hat einen nationalen Energieeffizienz Aktionsplan (National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, NEEAP), der ein Energiesparziel von 27,5 TWh für das Jahr 2016 in Gebäuden, Verkehr und Kleingewerbe setzt. Rund 62 % der geplanten Energieeinsparungen sollen demnach in Flandern, 30 % in der Wallonie und 8 % in Brüssel-Hauptstadt erreicht werden. Zur Erreichung der Ziele soll jede Region eigene Anreize und Vorschriften in Bezug auf Energieeffizienz entwickeln. Das Energieleitbild ist somit in die Zielvorgaben der Wallonischen Region eingebunden.
Das langfristige Ziel der DG geht über diese Zielvorgabe hinaus und hat zum Kern die bilanziell "energieautarke DG". Dazu bedarf es einer auf Dauer angelegten und breit gefächerten Energieplanung mit konkreten und messbaren Teiletappen und -zielen. Die Erarbeitung eines regionalen Energieleitbildes stellt daher die Basis aller weiteren Schritte und Maßnahmen dar.
Vor diesem Hintergrund hat die DG das Wuppertal Institut im Rahmen einer öffentlichen Ausschreibung beauftragt, ein Energieleitbild für die Region zu erstellen. Dieses Energieleitbild beinhaltet folgende Elemente:
Bestandsaufnahme: Hier erfolgt eine Bewertung der energetischen Ist-Situation in der DG. Die Datenerhebung erfolgte in enger Kooperation mit dem Auftraggeber.
Potenzialanalyse: In der Potenzialanalyse werden die theoretischen Einsparpotenziale und die Möglichkeiten zur verstärkten Nutzung erneuerbarer Energieträger dargestellt.
Vision: Hier wird ein Bild einer positiven Entwicklung der DG anhand eines narrativen Szenarios entworfen.
Umsetzungs- und Fahrplan: Diese Pläne beinhalten Vorschläge für Maßnahmen und Aktionen zum Erreichen der Zielsetzungen, sowie mögliche Umsetzungszeiten.
Finanzierungsplan: Der Finanzierungsplan beinhaltet zahlreiche Vorschläge zur Finanzierung.
The overall objective of the web-based consumer information tool Euro-Topten is to promote the market transformation towards energy efficient products. Euro-Topten informs consumers about the most energy efficient products in various categories and thereby aims to directly influence the purchasing decisions of individuals or professional buyers.
Providers of internet-based information tools are confronted with the problem, that there is no bidirectional interaction with the users. Hence, it is difficult to evaluate if the specific needs of users are addressed, if and how the user processes this information and to what extent the information influences the user's decision making process.
To study these questions, a web-based survey was conducted in two consecutive rounds. In the first round the survey focused on the assessment of the information tool itself and the motivation for using the Euro-Topten websites. This survey was online on all active Euro-Topten partner websites from October to December 2012. In total, 1791 users completed the survey.
In the second round, a subset of the survey population was queried again. 1,043 participants agreed to take part in a more comprehensive follow up survey, 383 completed the second survey between May and July 2013. The second survey concentrated on the question how Euro-Topten has influenced the purchasing behaviour of the survey participants. This gave significant insights on how the information on the Euro-Topten websites has affected purchasing decisions of the surveyed users.
Based on a comparison of performance indicators of the most efficient products recommended on the Euro-Topten websites with performance indicators of a base case product available on the market, avoided energy demand could be estimated for those users, who bought products from the Euro-Topten list. Based on these results, two impacts of Euro-Topten could be estimated: The influence of Euro-Topten on purchasing decision of users and the associated reductions in energy demand and CO2-emissions.
Die Transformationsprozesse hin zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung sind komplex.
Wie kann Wissenschaft dazu beitragen, dass neue Lösungen und Ideen in der Praxis zu Veränderung führen? Dieser Frage gehen die Autorinnen und Autoren am Beispiel der Gebäudeenergiewende nach. Eine transformative Forschung, die den neutralen Beobachterposten verlässt, braucht entsprechende Konzepte und Methoden: Wie kann Wissen aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen und aus der Praxis integriert werden, um komplexe Sachverhalte und Zusammenhänge zu erklären und zu verstehen? Welche Rolle spielen komplexe (agentenbasierte) Modelle und Experimente dabei? Wie sieht der Methodenmix einer transformativen Wissenschaft aus, die Akteure bei Transformationsprozessen aktiv unterstützt? Illustriert werden diese Fragen am Beispiel des vom BMBF geförderten Forschungsprojektes "EnerTransRuhr".