The Climate Alliance is backed by almost 2,000 member municipalities from over 25 countries. The network combines a local approach with global responsibility in line with the mission statement “For local answers to the global climate crisis”. The Climate Alliance offers its members concrete support in municipal climate protection and climate adaptation. This includes, for instance, instruments for CO2 monitoring or campaigns on mobility and energy efficiency. The network also promotes the interests of cities and municipalities at national and European level in order to strengthen municipal climate protection politically.
Mayor Katja Dörner: “Climate protection has a long and successful tradition in Bonn. In the 30 years of membership in the Climate Alliance, emissions in Bonn have fallen by 32%. Networks such as the Climate Alliance are an important place for exchange and for learning from each other. We can share many of our experiences in Bonn with other cities. The findings from our work in the Climate Alliance feed directly into the implementation of Bonn's Climate Plan.”
City makes active and varied use of its membership
The City of Bonn uses its membership in both directions: On the one hand, it contributes its own know-how to the network, and on the other, it repeatedly makes use of offers from the Climate Alliance that support local climate protection.
Bonn is a member of the Climate Alliance's CO2 monitoring working group, for instance. Among other things, this working group has contributed to the development of the Municipal Accounting Standard used by many municipalities and has been involved in the development of the “Climate Protection Planner”, a tool for drawing up municipal greenhouse gas balances.
Membership of the Climate Alliance enables Bonn residents to try out new things: Bonn has been taking part in the City Cycling campaign launched by Climate Alliance every year since 2017. Around 3,200 Bonn residents take part annually, covering an average of more than 590,000 kilometers by bike. Among other things, Climate Alliance provides the digital platform and technical support for the campaign in order to raise awareness of cycling as a healthy and climate-friendly form of mobility throughout Germany.
Most recently, Bonn participated as a model municipality in the NKI-funded project “Instruments for municipal climate protection work” by Climate Alliance, ifeu Heidelberg and the Institute for Renewable Energies IE Leipzig, which deals, amongst others, with the operationalization of climate protection targets - a topic that Bonn is working on intensively as part of its climate plan.
Background climate protection and climate adaptation in Bonn
Bonn wants to become climate-neutral by 2035, as decided by the City Council in November 2019. The subsequent “Bonn Climate Plan 2035”, a roadmap for a climate-neutral and livable city of Bonn, was adopted by the City Council in March 2023. As a climate neutrality strategy, the climate plan defines goals and development paths for the period up to 2035 and contains a “climate action plan” as a work program for the city administration that is geared towards this, which will be implemented and continuously updated in the coming years.
Bonn is also strategically positioning itself in the area of climate adaptation: The City of Bonn is currently developing an integrated climate adaptation concept, which is being funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment as part of the German Adaptation Strategy. Completion is planned for summer 2025.
Further information can be found at www.bonn.de/klima (opens in a new tab).
Further information in the Climate Alliancwe: www.klimabuendnis.org (opens in a new tab)