Our way to the destination

Our goal is clear: we want a climate-neutral Göttingen by 2030. As a civil society, we therefore ask the city of Göttingen, in a friendly but binding way, to live up to its commitments. To this end, we want to increase pressure from below with the following strategy.

1 – Motion

This is a motion to the city council that we created together with a lot of support from various environmental, climate and social groups. The model here was a group fromaus Münster. They also drew up a motion together with 30 groups and initiatives and then introduced it to the city council via the Left Party, ÖDP and Pirates. Together with the Greens and the SPD, the motion received a majority and was thus adopted.

We used Münster’s motion as a template and discussed it with the other groups at the Zero Emissions Meeting (NET).

From now on, it’s up to us to approach MPs and convince them of this proposal by February 2021. It was presented to the city council on 12 February.

2 – Petition

In order to keep up the pressure from below after the motion was referred to the environment committee, we launched a citizens’ petition in December 2020. Like the motion, it calls for a decision on climate neutrality by 2030.

To ensure the success of the citizens’ petition, we had to collect signatures and advertise. In the meantime, 9600 Göttingen citizens have signed a petition calling for climate neutrality by 2030, which means that we have reached the required number of eligible voters and submitted the lists for the city council meeting on 16 July 2021.

The successful citizens’ initiative could have led to a citizens’ referendum in which all eligible voters in Göttingen could have voted on whether their city should become climate neutral by 2030. This decision would then have constituted a binding mandate for the city. However, due to the city’s declaration of intent to become climate neutral by 2030, which was passed in December 2021 in the building committee, the citizens’ referendum was averted, as the city essentially decided in favour of the petition with the declaration of intent. But to ensure that the declaration of intent is actually implemented, it is up to us citizens to continue to exert pressure on local politics.

3 – The Campaigning

By this we mean approaching the local members of the Bundestag. In the spirit of GermanZero, we want to take the climate pledge from our members of parliament. To this end, we want to regularly discuss the climate crisis and the necessary political response with them. In this way, we hope to win them over to the 1.5° law drafted by GermanZero. You can find out more about the 1.5° Law on the website of GermanZero.