State-owned companies in city of Berlin to invest €13.6 billion in climate action by 2030

State-owned companies in the German capital Berlin have agreed to invest about 13.6 billion euros in climate action measures to comply with the city’s climate and energy transition targets. Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner and members of the city senate signed the Climate Pact 2025-2030 with 22 companies, which will receive 2.3 billion euros in support from the city-state to achieve the goal of reducing emissions by 70 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. 

“We take climate action seriously,” said mayor Wegner of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “The Climate Pact is a commitment to a sustainable and liveable Berlin,” Wegner said. Economy senator Franziska Giffey from the Social Democrats (SPD) said the pact would ensure that Berlin invests in a more capable power grid, the decarbonisation of its heating supply, the expansion of roof-mounted solar power, and the electrification of transport. “Climate action also means an investment in Berlin as a business location” thanks to the innovation and growth opportunities that come with applying new technologies, she added. 

The 2030 goal means reducing emissions by 7.2 million tonnes, public broadcaster rbb quoted Giffey as saying. “This is a massive effort,” she said, stressing that heating decarbonisation would be a key lever in this respect. The city’s energy and heating supplier BEW alone accounts for 25 percent of Berlin’s total emissions, Giffey added. By the end of the decade, BEW’s emissions should therefore be cut in half to 2.3 million tonnes through the use of more heat pumps, wastewater heat, and bioenergy heating plants. Moreover, the city must build more solar panels to absorb the growing demand for electricity and push electric mobility to bring down emissions in the transport sector, she added. 

CDU transport senator Ute Bonde said that the city has already cut emissions by half since 1990 and aims to become “almost completely climate neutral” by 2045. Apart from the Climate Pact, this should be achieved through measures such as “climate-compliant budgeting” or an initiative to boost the number of trees in the city, she added. 

Environmental group BUND criticised the fact that the German capital lacks a binding climate action framework to complement the Climate Pact. This would include clear targets for the heating transition and giving precedence to public transport over car-friendly transport planning, rbb reported.