Climate Change Referendum in Berlin Fails

Berlin’s referendum to become carbon neutral by 2030 failed on March 26. (Wikimedia Commons)

A referendum to make Berlin a carbon neutral city by 2030 failed on March 26, because of a lack of votes. If it had succeeded, the referendum would have bound Berlin to become carbon neutral ahead of Germany’s national carbon neutral goal of 2045.

For the referendum to pass, it needed both a majority of voters to support it and the vote of 25 percent of eligible voters in Berlin. While the referendum gained a narrow majority (50.9 percent)of support, it did not reach the quota of eligible voters to pass. About 442 thousand people voted in favor of Berlin going carbon neutral by 2030, but that was less than the necessary 25 percent of Berlin’s 2.4 million eligible voters.

The activists who initiated this referendum are members of a group called Climate Reset Berlin. They claim that Berlin’s current target of carbon neutrality by 2045 is not in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The Paris Accords’ goal is to stop global warming from going over 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above the pre-industrial age average temperature.

The United Nations called for countries to set carbon neutral goals for2040 to stop the irreparable destruction of climate change, with some countries and cities setting their goals even earlier. The European Union has the goal of helping 100 cities reach carbon neutrality by 2030, although that policy is not legally binding like Berlin’s referendum would have been. More than 100 cities have committed to become carbon neutral already, such as Paris, Stockholm, Rome, and Helsinki and smaller German cities. The capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, has set their climate neutrality goal to 2025 and, if they can achieve it, they will become the first city to be carbon neutral.

While activist groups advocated for the referendum, the city government urged voters to vote against it. The city would have been legally bound to climate neutrality in seven years, a goal that many of Berlin’s lawmakers do not think is possible without steep short-term costs. Today, 80 percent of Berlin’s energy comes from fossil fuel. Berlin has few renewable energy sources, adding to the difficulty of carbon neutrality. 

Some estimates show the cost of Berlin becoming carbon neutral by 2030 to be up to $100 billion. Redesigning Berlin’s heating network would alone cost over $4 billion. The cost of investing in renewable energy and building efficient public transport systems would be billions and cut funding from other areas like education. 

Stefan Evers, a lawmaker in Berlin’s local government, stated “Everybody who votes ‘yes’ on Sunday needs to ask themselves: Do we want to make drastic savings on kindergartens, schools, public sports facilities, homeless aid and social housing because of this referendum, or not?”. While Berlin recently proposed setting aside more than $5 billion for climate protection, that is not nearly enough money to make the drastic changes that would be necessary to become carbon neutral by 2030 – and hard decisions would have been necessary to get that money.