Referendum to speed climate actions fails in Berlin

Robert Besser
30 Mar 2023, 15:14 GMT+10

German news agency dpa has reported that a proposal to ramp up Berlin's climate goals failed to win the required votes in a referendum held this past weekend
Shortly before the end of the count, there were some 423,000 votes in favor and 405,000 votes against
Under the proposal, Berlin was to set a target to become climate neutral by 2030, meaning that in less than eight years, the city should not contribute further to global warming

BERLIN, Germany: German news agency dpa has reported that a proposal to ramp up Berlin's climate goals failed to win the required votes in a referendum held this past weekend.

After some 98 percent of votes had been counted, supporters of the proposal were just ahead of the proposal's opponents, but result only met one requirement for a successful proposal, with the second requirement, a quorum of at least 25 percent of all eligible voters, not being met, dpa added.

Shortly before the end of the count, there were some 423,000 votes in favor and 405,000 votes against. The quorum for a successful referendum would have been 608,000 votes in favor of the proposal.

Under the proposal, Berlin was to set a target to become climate neutral by 2030, meaning that in less than eight years, the city should not contribute further to global warming.

An existing law sets the deadline for achieving that goal in line with Germany's national target, of 2045.

A grassroots group that initiated the proposal argued that Berlin's current target is not in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which aims to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with the pre-industrial average.

The earlier target was opposed by the center-right Christian Democratic Union, which won a recent local election in the capital and is likely to lead its new government.