From Pankow to Massachusetts

Be it about energy poverty or energy efficiency, electric vehicles or renewable energies. The climate action topics on which we can learn from the experience, knowledge and initiatives of other countries are many and varied. Let’s take a trip around the world, looking at projects that may inspire action here at home. But let’s also take a look at the studies produced by the Oeko-Institut that build upon insights transcending national boundaries.

Berlin, Pankow. Our staff scientist Johanna Cludius is taking a trip abroad, at least in spirit. For it is abroad, she says, where we can encounter much from which we can learn for climate action at home. “Germany still tends to see itself as a country others can learn from. Yet there are countless projects and initiatives abroad from which we can learn a great deal. Moreover – and not least – we can also learn from mistakes or from things that have not worked.”

One key issue on which Germany can take a lead from other countries is energy poverty. “Measuring and monitoring this through an Energy Poverty Observatory is standard practice in many countries”, Cludius notes. In Germany, in contrast, we know scarcely anything about the current situation, partly due to a history of inaction in this regard because of reliance on a strong social security system. “But it can’t stay that way – climate policy and social issues are far too closely intertwined and must always be addressed in a unified approach.”

Not just in Great Britain

We first join Johanna Cludius on a trip to Ireland – the country is a pioneer in combatting energy poverty, the scientist stresses. Commissioned by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the Oeko-Institut has produced energy poverty country reports on Germany, Greece, France, Poland and Ireland as input to a project titled “Vulnerability in the context of the ETS 2: Existing data and instruments in the housing sector”. “In my view, this kind of work too is normal scientific practice: seeing what there is, finding out which solutions to certain problems others have devised, and building upon this.” There are certainly things to build upon in Ireland. One is the Warmer Homes programme – providing financial support to vulnerable households so that they can carry out energy performance improvements to their homes. Another is the Stay Well & Warm initiative – helping such households gain access to key information on potential support schemes.

Better housing in Greece

We move on to Greece, a further country in which a much stronger focus is placed on energy poverty than in Germany. Here an action plan to combat energy poverty is in place. Greece’s national energy and climate plan envisages halving energy poverty by 2025 and reducing it by 75 percent by the year 2030, all from a 2016 baseline. “To achieve these targets, Greece has developed a whole raft of measures – including financial assistance for building retrofits or heating system replacement, and an act on energy cooperatives jointly operating renewable energy plants”, Cludius notes.

Wherever one looks

The Vauban district of Freiburg. We’re briefly back in Germany, at the Oeko-Institut head office. Malte Bei der Wieden is just as convinced as his colleague Johanna Cludius that looking abroad can only yield benefit for one’s own climate activities at home. “Seeing what works abroad expands one’s conception of what is possible. It also greatly facilitates debate on ways to take action at home if one can refer to something that already works well elsewhere”, he points out. “Conditions and challenges can vary greatly depending upon the continent one looks at. Nonetheless, even in a foreign country where climatic conditions are very different one can learn about successful ways to involve the public.”

Goodbye to fossil gas in Holland

Malte Bei der Wieden first takes us to the Netherlands. On behalf of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), scientists in the Oeko-Institut’s Energy & Climate Division joined forces with the Regulatory Assistance Project to examine successful pathways to phase out natural gas in a project titled “Planning and regulating Europe’s gas networks: breaking up with fossil gas”. They analysed the status quo and the regulatory situation in seven European countries. “Up to now Germany lacks any clear strategy by which to close down the gas grid in a planned manner. However, first cities such as Zurich and countries such as the Netherlands have taken the lead. Germany, too, will have to address this issue sooner or later: if more and more people use renewable sources to heat their homes and disconnect from the gas grid, the grid usage charges for the remaining consumers will rise. And those will be low-income, tenant households.” The Netherlands has adopted a measure he would like to show us: “In 2018 the decision was already taken that new buildings are no longer permitted to be connected to the gas grid. What is more, local authorities have the right to prohibit new gas connections themselves.”

More efficiency in the USA

On the other side of the Atlantic – in the USA, to be precise – there are also initiatives that Malte Bei der Wieden would like to show us. Commissioned by the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and working together with the Institut Wohnen und Umwelt, the Oeko-Institut’s scientists compiled such initiatives in the USA and elsewhere in a project titled “Minimum Energy Performance Standards for Non-Residential Buildings”. They explored numerous approaches designed to implement minimum efficiency standards for non-residential buildings in a wide range of countries. “The European Union’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive aims to boost energy efficiency in buildings – and must be transposed into German national law by May 2026”, Malte Bei der Wieden explains. “In that endeavour, we can learn a lot from other countries.” In addition, minimum energy performance standards are a highly effective climate policy tool. “They address those buildings where the savings potential is greatest.” He notes positive examples in California, Colorado, Maryland and Massachusetts. “In Boston, for example, a regulation of this kind was adopted in 2021 for municipal and commercial buildings and for multifamily residential buildings. It requires climate neutrality for these buildings by 2050 and the deployment of renewable energy sources to meet that goal.”

Transcending boundaries

Back in Germany, the Oeko-Institut scientists are keen to stress that looking abroad is not a matter of carbon-copying ideas or projects. It is more about finding inspiration in them. And seeing them as pathbreakers for one’s own efforts. And, not least, it is about gaining indications of areas in which research efforts need to come together and generate synergies. “If we see climate questions to which no approaches have yet responded, we can be fairly certain that answering them is difficult”, says Johanna Cludius. “We then need to tackle such questions together, transcending all boundaries.”

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Dr Johanna Cludius and Malte Bei der Wieden both work in the Oeko-Institut’s Energy & Climate Division, where they address climate issues from diverse angles. For instance, Cludius, an economist, explores the distributional effects of energy and climate policies and analyses market-based instruments of climate policy. Bei der Wieden, an environmental engineer, works on energy efficiency and the renewable energy share in supply systems for the buildings sector, among other topics.