The frame was worthy. The “Klimaentscheid Bayreuth” initiative laid out a carpet, also brought wind instruments and more than 5000 signatures for more climate protection, neatly packed in a suitcase, handed over to the mayor. Although it is not the case that the Bayreuth activists fundamentally deny that Upper Franconia’s capital is already thinking about climate protection. After all, the city council there recently adopted a climate protection concept, issued a policy statement and even hired female climate protection managers. Only: That’s just not enough, say the climate decision-makers. With the signatures they want to force a referendum.
In Bayreuth, the initiative has already submitted the signatures, and a total of six other Bavarian cities and districts are currently collecting them, as Jan Renner, spokesman for “More Democracy Bavaria”, has in mind. An initiative started in Nuremberg in May 2021, the goal is a climate-neutral city by 2030, the effort in the city of half a million is considerable: According to the initiative, it has acquired 24 alliance partners and more than 60 collection points and distributed 10,000 lists of signatures by by August 2022 – this is the stated goal – 15,000 signatures are to be collected.
A submitted climate city plan would require 1411 new full-time jobs
In the much smaller Bayreuth, it didn’t take that many to put the city under pressure. This week, the city council is to decide whether the requirements are met and whether a referendum is permissible with which the initiative wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. Mayor Thomas Ebersberger (CSU) is very skeptical. He says that the city council’s decision to achieve climate neutrality by 2040 is an “extremely demanding decision”. And raises considerable doubts as to whether a referendum would be permissible at all. This would not be the case if the balance of the budget were disturbed so massively that the city was no longer able to fulfill its tasks. Unfortunately, according to Ebersberger, apparently few signatories “read the small print”. The climate city plan presented by the initiative states that a referendum for Bayreuth would mean “767 million investments and an additional 1,411 full-time jobs per year”. In fact, almost a doubling of the municipal positions.
Eva Manegold, one of the initiative’s spokespersons, expected resistance. The figures presented in her climate city plan for 2020 are “in no way specifically calculated,” she says, and the investment and personnel requirements listed there on page 27 are “explicitly not a requirement” of the initiative. The activists, about one and a half dozen, are not concerned with numbers in a generalized document, but with content. Signatures for a climate-neutral city were collected for two years and we deliberately waited a long time to hand them over. Should Bayreuth now try to prevent a referendum with a city council majority, there are only two options, says Manegold. To enter into a dialogue with the city again, so one more try; or to enforce the decision by legal means. According to the city, this would cost a low six-digit amount. So it will be exciting in Bayreuth.
The fact that perhaps not very many citizens are expressly against more climate protection, but on the other hand not very many are working hard for corresponding plans, has recently been shown in the Upper Bavarian district town of Traunstein. There, the city council had the citizens vote on a climate plan by means of a council request, according to which the city administration and the municipal utilities should become climate-neutral by 2030 and the entire city, including citizens and companies, should follow suit by 2040 at the latest. The proposal received almost 76 percent of the votes cast, but in absolute numbers only so few that the referendum failed due to the statutory approval quorum of 20 percent and had no binding effect.
Citizen surveys on climate protection also fail because of the quorum
The much more far-reaching proposal of the citizens’ initiative “Climate Awakening Traunstein Now” fared in a similar way at the end of May. The initiative had set itself more ambitious goals and called for full climate neutrality by 2030, ten years earlier than the city council’s climate plan. This proposal also received more than 70 percent of the votes in the vote – and it also failed due to the quorum, which Mayor Christian Hümmer (CSU) then interpreted as confirmation of the city council’s course. According to its own statement, the city of Traunstein now wants to “orient itself to the legal requirements of the federal and state governments” and implement individual points from its climate plan. She expects a particularly large impact from the decarbonisation of her municipal utilities. According to a calculation by the town hall, gradually converting your own electricity and gas supplier to solar and wind power as well as to biogas and geothermal energy will probably cost a three-digit million amount.
The fight for the climate does not end in a confrontation everywhere. In Würzburg, where the deputy mayor – the Green Martin Heilig – can call himself “Germany’s first climate mayor”, climate activists and the city have agreed on common goals. An initiative had already started collecting signatures. “The city council then used the pressure constructively,” says Heilig. Climate activists and the city agreed on an ambitious compromise. A climate-neutral city administration is to become a reality in Würzburg by 2028.