Europaworld 29/11/2002 Climate Star 2002 award

Today, in St.Pölten, Lower Austria, 19 cities, municipalities and regions received the Climate Star 2002 award in recognition of their exemplary climate protection activities. The European Secretariat of the Climate Alliance of European Cities received a total of 141 submissions from 13 European countries for this first European award for local authority climate protection activities. A high-level international jury of experts selected the winning projects by applying the following criteria: effectiveness, innovativeness, transferability and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

The climate protection projects submitted for the award focus on energy, transport, land use and North-South cooperation. The field of energy is particularly prominent, with 65 projects. Of these, 37 are concerned with renewable energy sources. The second main field of local authority action - mobility, urban development and land use - is the focus of 25 projects. The projects show that cities and municipalities are making active use of their planning competencies in the transport sector to promote climate protection
and sustainable urban planning.

In the class of municipalities up to 10,000 inhabitants, the Climate Star award went to: Bad Hofgastein/Werfenweng (A), Gornji Grad (SLO), Greussenheim (D), Kirchberg an der Pielach (A), Langenegg (A), Zwischenwasser (A).

In the next class up to 100,000 inhabitants, Kristianstad (S), District of Rybnik (P), Landkreis Herrenberg (D), Norderstedt (D) and Ostfildern (D) received the award.

In the class above 100,000 inhabitants, the following cities won the Climate Star award: Barcelona (E), Graz (A), Hannover (D), Heidelberg (D), Linköping (S), Modena (I), Thessaloniki (GR) and the Danish Dogma 2000 cities (Albertslund, Ballerup, Fredericia, Herning, Copenhagen).

Climate change and climate protection will be dominant themes of this century. When the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change has entered into force, climate protection will become a mandatory task, too. This will concern all policy levels. "But climate protection only works if people in cities and villages play their part" stressed the Councillor of Lower Austria, Mag. Wolfgang Sobotka, at the award ceremony. "They live out this commitment by seeking individual paths for their municipality to reduce environmental impacts, by committing themselves courageously to major projects and by developing new ideas."

Many cities and municipalities are already important climate protection pioneers, particularly the more than 1000 member municipalities in the Climate Alliance. "By organizing the Climate Star award scheme, the Climate Alliance aims to underpin the quality of municipal climate protection and to call for intensified commitment" said Dipl.-Phys. Gotelind Alber, Director of the Climate Alliance's European Secretariat.