Hanover misses climate targets for 2020: Now an emergency program is coming
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The city of Hanover clearly misses climate targets for 2020 – is the city toll coming now?
Hanover.The city of Hanover has clearly missed the climate targets set for 2020. The plan was actually to reduce greenhouse gases that are harmful to the climate by 40 percent compared to 1990. However, only 33 percent was achieved. This emerges from the current balance sheet, which Mayor Belit Onay and Economics and Environment Department Head Anja Ritschel (both Greens) presented on Monday.
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The main reason why the targets set were not achieved is the poor balance sheet in the transport sector. CO2 emissions there have even increased by 9 percent compared to 1990. Overall, traffic accounts for 22 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. “There is increasing mobility and ever larger vehicles. As a result, the efficiency gains in the sector were completely eaten up,” explains Ritschel. The transport sector has so far made “no contribution whatsoever to climate neutrality”.
Mayor Onay: Previous transport policy in Hanover “failed”
Onay also sees the transport policy of the past “from a climate policy point of view as a failure”. The efforts that have to be made are now all the greater. The planned redesign of the city center with significantly fewer cars is “a building block – but only a very small one,” said Onay.
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According to a decision by the council, Hanover is to become climate-neutral by 2035. So that this can still work, “we have to turn all the screws,” announced Head of Department Ritschel. It takes “a real willingness to change”.
The city has had the Leipzig Institute for Energy calculate whether the goal can be achieved at all. This concludes that a reduction of only 60 percent can be achieved by 2035 if emissions are to fall at a similar rate as recently. However, a reduction of 91 percent is possible. However, this requires “further enhanced and additional measures”. It is not enough to simply bring forward the goals originally set for 2050. According to the institute, “thinking about new measures” would be required.
Checkout, please: Resident parking is to be extended to large parts of the southern part of the city. For the city, this is a first step to improve the poor climate balance in the transport sector.
© Source: Christian Behrens
The city of Hanover is thinking about congestion charges
With the emergency program that Onay and Ritschel presented on Monday, the city will switch to the right path to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. The Lord Mayor would like to pay special attention to the climate problem child of traffic.
The establishment of resident parking zones in densely populated quarters is “a first step”. A second will be the pricing policy, which must become more “honest” in relation to the car. Those who claim public space for themselves cannot do so permanently for free. The emergency program also shows that measures are needed that “aimed at making private car use more difficult” in order to achieve the climate targets.
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A congestion charge could also become an issue. The Leipzig Institute for Energy proposes this as a possibility “to reduce the privileging of car traffic”. However, the legal framework would have to be created at the federal level. According to the city’s emergency program, “pricing or access restrictions for motorized private transport according to environmental criteria” is an option. However, the administration on Monday was not yet more specific.
There should be a ban on heating with fossil fuels in new buildings
Otherwise, OB Onay relies on a rapid expansion of the cycle routes. Most of the fastest bike connections should be ready by 2026/2027 and not by 2030, as initially planned. The city is also focusing on expanding car-sharing offers and local transport. It needs “alternatives for professionals who are still waiting for the car today,” said Onay. Overall, the volume of car traffic is expected to fall by 30 percent by 2035.
According to the city, the municipal provider Enercity plays an important role in supplying households and industry with energy. Important steps such as the shutdown of the coal-fired power plant in Stöcken and the Conversion of densely populated areas to district heating have already been initiated, explained head of department Ritschel. As an additional step, the city will stipulate a ban on heating with fossil fuels for new buildings in the development plan. New houses would either have to be connected to the district heating network or rely on alternatives such as heat pumps.