Climate protection in Aachen

Climate protection is one of the main pillars of the City of Aachen's sustainability strategy(www.aachen.de/nachhaltigkeit). Commitment in this area began 30 years ago. By joining the European Climate Alliance (at the beginning of 1992), the City of Aachen committed itself early on to ambitious reduction targets (halving CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2020) and aligned its strategies and fields of action accordingly. It is also a member of the EU Commission's climate protection initiatives "Covenant of Mayors" of European cities and "Mayors Adapt".

In order to track progress towards achieving the climate protection targets, the City of Aachen is participating in the "European Energy Award" municipal management and certification system from 2009 to 2024. In addition to monitoring whether intended measures have been implemented and whether they have had the desired effect, regular adjustments are also made, for example by adapting the energy policy work program.

In addition to its commitment to climate protection, the city of Aachen has also investigated the extent to which climate change is already having an impact locally. Taking climate forecasts into account, it has adopted a concept for adapting to climate change and is continuously implementing the measures listed therein.

The information on the energy and carbon footprint is presented in detail in the "Strategies, concepts, actions" section. The annual eea reports of the City of Aachen (see below) also show the development of energy demand and CO2 emissions.

Over the past 30 years, the city of Aachen has repeatedly taken on a pioneering role in municipal action, e.g. in the following projects:

• the earlier district heating network expansion
• the feed-in tariff for renewable energies, which became the model for today's Federal Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG)
• Building automation and building controlling of own properties
• the first energy efficiency concept in Germany
• the advice center for homeowners, altbau plus
• the Solid Fuel Ordinance
• the initiative to expand combined heat and power generation (CHP)
• the early clean air plan.

The latest measures for the local energy transition include, for example:

• Construction and commissioning of ten new wind turbines, two more are currently under construction.
• Construction and commissioning of a new combined heat and power plant
• The draft of a new land use plan taking into account climate adaptation issues
• the urban green and design statutes
• the process-based development of a new transport development plan with broad stakeholder participation
• the package of measures to strengthen electromobility
• the construction of new school extensions (canteens) and kindergartens in passive house design