March 26 () –
The referendum to approve the Berlin Climate Neutrality 2030 plan has achieved 35.8 percent participation, far from the 50 percent necessary to apply a whole package of measures to accelerate the fight against climate change.
Around 442,210 people have voted in favor of the initiative, while 423,418 have voted against, according to official data collected by the German public television ARD.
The high percentage of rejection is striking, since everything indicated that those who were against the proposal would opt for abstention.
The mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey (Social Democratic Party, SPD) has announced that she will work so that Berlin “becomes a climate neutral city as quickly as possible before 2045”.
Giffey herself had warned that the goal of climate neutrality by 2030 was unrealistic. “We are aware of the urgency, even though the referendum has not gone ahead,” she indicated.
Giffey, who is currently negotiating with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for a possible coalition to govern the German capital, has stressed that climate change will be “a transversal priority for the government.”
The CDU, the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have expressed their satisfaction with the result. “Berlin says yes to climate protection, but no to false promises,” said CDU leader Stefan Evers.
“The common sense of Berliners has prevailed,” said FDP leader Christoph Meyer, while AfD’s Kristin Brinker pointed out that “a valid ‘yes’ would have been devastating for our city.”
The referendum is the result of a campaign by the organization Klimaneustart Berlin (Climate Restart Berlin), which gathered 260,000 signatures in four months last year.
“The referendum has failed due to the quorum. This raises many questions that we must work on, but we have also shown that there is a majority in Berlin, one of the most heterogeneous cities in Germany, in favor of constant climate protection,” he stressed. environmental organization.
Climate neutrality implies that no more greenhouse gases are emitted than the nature of an area is capable of absorbing. To do this, emissions would have to be reduced by around 95 percent compared to 1990 data.
