Germany´s Climate Action Plan 2050: Inolving traditional stakeholders and the broader public to develop concrete implementation measures
In 2013, Germany’s newly elected government decided to define an emissions reduction pathway with a final target of 80 to 95 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 1990 baseline by 2050 and, to that end, develop a Climate Action Plan (CAP). Because of the envisioned societal consequences, the new government decided to develop the CAP in a participatory manner. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment set up a comprehensive public dialogue process to underpin the plan with concrete measures and secure broad legitimacy.
The scope of the dialogue process was unprecedented in Germany. It involved not only “traditional” stakeholders from the German policy making context (federal states and municipalities, industry and civil society) but also “ordinary” citizens. From June 2015 until March 2016, representatives from federal states, municipalities, associations and citizens came together to compile a joint catalogue of proposals for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment. The catalogue was subsequently used to inform the drafting process of the Climate Action Plan, alongside other technical reports and recommendations. The final Climate Action Plan 2015 was adopted in November 2016.
INCREASED ACCEPTANCE OF THE CAP AND STRENGTHENED POSITION OF THE MINISTRY: The involvement of ordinary, non-organized citizens brought new ideas into discussion and alsohelped to increase the acceptance of the climate action measures. A majority of the citizen delegates and all delegates of the stakeholder forum found that the quality of the plan increased substantially because of the involvement of ordinary citizens, as evidenced by a survey (Fass & Huesmann 2017). The dialogue process was broadly considered a success (Rucht 2016). It helped to increase the legitimacy of the plan. Moreover, the involvement of traditional stakeholders and citizens strengthened the position of the ministry in interdepartmental negotiations. The ministry could come up with a set of measures that enjoyed broad backing by the population.
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB); municipalities, federal states, civil society organizations, industry organizations, trade unions, and citizens.