Berliners vote down referendum on city’s goal to be climate neutral by 2030

The measure would have forced the new conservative local government to invest heavily in renewable energy, building efficiency and public transport

The referendum was a test of whether Germans, or at least Berliners, want Germany’s climate policy to be more ambitious

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Climate activists protest in front of Berlin’s Chancellery on Sunday, with the Reichstag in the background. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:26am, 27 Mar 2023Updated: 3:27am, 27 Mar 2023

A referendum in Berlin, Germany on Sunday that would have bound the city to strive to be climate neutral by 2030 has failed, the city’s mayor Franziska Giffey said in a statement.

The measure would have forced the new conservative local government to invest heavily in renewable energy, building efficiency and public transport.

Had it passed, Berlin would have been one of the few major European cities with a legally binding goal to become carbon neutral in seven years.

Berlin’s mayor Franziska Giffey. Photo: dpa

The result “shows that the majority of Berliners also see that the demands of the referendum could not have been implemented – not even if they were cast into law,” Giffey said.

The European Union last year started a scheme to help 100 cities inside and outside the bloc become climate neutral by 2030, but the scheme and the financial support it offers are not legally binding.

The referendum was a test of whether Germans, or at least Berliners, want Germany’s climate policy, which now aims to make Europe’s biggest economy carbon-neutral by 2045, to be more ambitious. Climate activists who initiated the vote said the government’s target was too far in the future to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“At the moment, climate policy is simply not sufficient to ensure a future worth living in our city,” Jessamine Davis, a spokesperson for Climate New Start Berlin, said.