A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Eckersley, Peter; Kern, Kristine; Haupt, Wolfgang; Müller, Hannah Research Report The multi-level context for local climate governance in Germany: The role of the federal states IRS Dialog, No. 3/2021 Provided in Cooperation with: Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) Suggested Citation: Eckersley, Peter; Kern, Kristine; Haupt, Wolfgang; Müller, Hannah (2021) : The multi-level context for local climate governance in Germany: The role of the federal states, IRS Dialog, No. 3/2021, Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung (IRS), Erkner, https://leibniz-irs.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Transferpublikationen/2021/IRS_Dialog_multi- level_governance.pdf This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/237056 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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The focus is on informing the public, research funding institutions, the media and relevant social institutions. The publication of results in research reports does not prevent publication at other locations and in other forms. ISSN 2701-228X Erkner, August 2021 Leibniz-Institut für IRS Raumbezogene Sozialforschung IRS DIALOG 3 | 2021 The multi-level context for local climate governance in Germany: the role of the federal states Peter Eckersley, Kristine Kern, Wolfgang Haupt, Hannah Müller Foreword This report is a product of the ExTrass project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to help medium-sized and large cities in Germany to prepare for the increased frequency of extreme weather events, particularly heavy rainfall and heatwaves. The project examines the drivers and barriers for urban climate adaptation and mitigation, with a particular focus on three case study cities: Potsdam, Remscheid and Würzburg. Amongst other things, the project team evaluates the efficacy of urban greening initiatives, works towards climate- sensitive urban planning, contributes data on city climate, educates the population on risks and improves contingency plans. It also provides a platform for knowledge exchange to help cities learn from each other. Cities are responsible for about 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions and are also particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events can result in significant damage to property and pose major risks to urban populations. Yet, municipalities are not able to manage these risks alone: in order to understand how they are seeking to combat change we need to examine the contexts within which they operate and their relationships with other key actors. This report focuses on the multi-level nature of the German state, with a particular focus on the role of the Bundesländer regional governments. It shows how the climate and energy priorities of individual states are largely shaped by their political and economic interests, and result in them adopting different approaches to working with municipalities. It shows that although Germany relies overwhelmingly on interdependent, vertical relationships between tiers of government to coordinate and implement climate policy, states that do not have a historical reliance on fossil fuel resources, and/or in which the Green Party form part of the governing coalition, have provided more resources and support to municipal governments to act on the issue. 3 IRS DIALOG 3 | 2021 Danksagung Dieser Bericht entstand mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung durch Martina Leppler. Für die zahlreichen Kommentare, Anmerkungen, Verbesserungsvorschläge und Formatierungen möchten wir uns herzlich bedanken. 4 IRS DIALOG 3 | 2021 Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6 2. Multi-level climate governance in Germany ................................................................... 7 2.1 Hierarchical, vertical and horizontal climate governance7 2.2 European Union ............................................................................................................................. 8 2.3 Federal-level strategies ................................................................................................................. 9 2.4 State-level strategies ................................................................................................................... 11 3. Approaches of the different Länder .............................................................................. 12 3.1 Coal states ................................................................................................................................... 13 3.2 Nuclear/solar energy states ........................................................................................................ 15 3.3. Wind energy states ..................................................................................................................... 15 3.4 Energy importing states .............................................................................................................. 16 3.5 City states .................................................................................................................................... 17 4. Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 19 References ....................................................................................................................... 21 Appendix: Climate profiles of the Bundesländer (in German) ........................................... 25 5 IRS DIALOG 3 | 2021 1. Introduction A range of academic studies have emphasised that the strategies that governments adopt to address climate change are influenced by the multi-level systems within which they operate (Bulkeley and Kern 2006; Jordan et al. 2018; Eckersley 2018a; Kern 2019). High-level global summits, such as the conferences in 1997 in Kyoto or 2015 in Paris, at which national governments agree to tackle the issue and set ambitious greenhouse gas (henceforth GHG) reduction targets, tend to make media headlines and command public attention. For countries such as Germany, binding targets are set at the EU level; member states decide how to achieve these objectives and subnational bodies are responsible for much of the implementation. An effective response to climate change therefore requires action from actors across all tiers of governance. Various factors underpin how climate policy is made and implemented at these different levels. In particular, the availability of resources such as money, staff, legal frameworks, ideas, advice and information can play a key role. Additionally, because policies to tackle climate change need to overlap many traditional policy sectors (including, but not limited to, energy, transport and planning), and non- state actors such as private companies and individuals also contribute to the problem, a range of different actors need to coordinate their activity to address the issue effectively. As a result, in order to get a better understanding of how climate policy develops and might become more effective, we need to understand the activities of these different organisations, the resources at their disposal, and how they work together. If regional and municipal governments lack the necessary resources, or are unable to develop and coordinate their activity effectively, countries will be unable to fulfil these high- level promises and meet their ambitious targets. Studies have shown that this co-ordination, as well as the sharing of resources and policies, occurs hierarchically (led by central or EU initiatives that aim to