As T&T awaits its Beverage and Waste Management bills and enforcement on existing environmental laws, today's guest columnist in our Cleaning Up the Mess Series is German Ambassador STEFAN SCHLÜTER who tells us about how his hometown, Hamburg in Germany, recently won the annual European Green Capital Award.
Not too long ago, green parties have been smiled at and citizens who expressed concern about the environment have been labelled a "granola" in Europe. Nowadays, acting responsible towards our environment is not only a necessity; it is also regarded as modern and well respected. In March of this year for example, the Green party in Germany triumphed in regional elections and will assume - for the first time in German history - office of the state premier. In Europe most people live in urban areas. As an incentive to reward and encourage cities to work on their environmental performance, the European Commission has started the initiative of an "Annual European Green Capital Award".
I am proud that my hometown Hamburg, the second largest container port in Europe, located in the north of Germany, won the award and can now consider itself the "European Green Capital 2011". Out of 34 cities in 17 different countries, Hamburg has been chosen to receive the title in 2011. Eleven environmental indicator areas have been defined to guide the work of an expert evaluation panel.
These are: local contribution to climate change, local transport, green urban areas, sustainable land use, nature and biodiversity, local air quality, noise pollution, waste production & management, water consumption, waste water treatment and environmental management of the municipality. The overall goal at the end is to promote best practices to other European cities and thereby enhance life quality and contribute to the fight against climate change.
The most ambitious project of Hamburg is to reduce Co2 emissions by 40 per cent until 2020 and by 80 per cent until 2050 in comparison to 1990. Already in 2006, Co2 emissions were reduced by 18 per cent.
To reach this goal, various steps have been put into place. One of them is the initiative "Hamburg learns sustainability". As the title indicates, the focus lies on learning: in pre-school, kids learn about energy, water and food, craftsmen receive further education in energy efficiency for existing buildings and climate protection through insulation, universities motivate through competitions to build solar energy rooftops.
Co2 emissions per person have been reduced by about 15 per cent compared to 1990, with annual energy savings of some 46,000 MWh.
The Hamburg Climate Protection Act contains a special cost-efficiency benchmark for energy-saving measures in public buildings such as programmes for lamps, boilers and refrigerator replacement.
Hamburg has replaced over 200,000 conventional lamps in more than 400 public buildings, saving energy and 3.4 million euros per year (approx. 30 million TTD). Additionally, over 600 boiler systems have been replaced with modern condensing boilers in recent years, an investment of 18 million euros (167 million TTD). Another incentive is the environmental partnership project, where environmental activities of companies are incorporated into the activities of the "Green Capital 2011". This gives companies more exposure and the experts of the City of Hamburg also offer to support and give advise.
More than 70 companies take part in this project, using it also as advertisement and to enhance visibility.
Hamburg will roll out many more projects in the years to come. Their success will largely depend on the participation of the whole city. The projects are designed to have a long term effect so they can ensure a healthier future for all citizens. Now, what can Trinidad and Tobago learn from the Project "European Green Capital"? Keywords are, once again, incentives and encouragement to thrive to make a difference, reward initiatives and make them visible and use best practice to spread it to other areas. A holistic approach where everyone is integrated to work towards the same goal creates motivation. Being and acting "green" has to become a fashion in the Caribbean. The benefits will be felt by everyone. Creating an "Annual Caribbean Green Capital Award" might be helpful to achieve these goals and I would love to see my new hometown Port-of-Spain winning that award.
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