The ambition is great, but the disappointment is no less great.

Wiesbaden is a long way from achieving the climate protection goals it has set itself, and it is not foreseeable how the tide will turn for the better in the short to medium term.

At the presentation of the energy and greenhouse gas balance sheet for the state capital, Environment Director Andreas Kowol (Die Grünen) openly admitted his disillusionment.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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Since 1990, the emission of carbon dioxide in Wiesbaden has fallen from 13 tons per inhabitant to almost ten tons per inhabitant and year.

If the 15,000 soldiers and their relatives are added, the figure is only nine tons.

But that's still way too much.

Wiesbaden declared a climate emergency in 2019 after previous efforts had hardly had any effect.

In 2007, the city had condensed its climate goals into the handy formula "Three times 20".

By 2020, total energy consumption should be reduced by 20 percent compared to 1990 levels and the share of renewable energies should be increased to 20 percent.

However, energy consumption increased by seven percent and the share of renewable energy reached a modest seven percent.

This is also due to the lack of control options in politics.

Education, advice, campaigns

The city group itself is only responsible for two percent of greenhouse gases.

The city can only reach all other emitters, i.e. citizens, companies and industry, through education, advice, campaigns and funding programs.

Their success is poor, as the example of the solar subsidy program launched in 2018 shows.

There have been 580 applications since 2018.

300,000 euros were paid out, and an output was installed that was just sufficient to cover the electricity requirements of 1,400 households.

That's not much in view of the 35,000 houses in Wiesbaden that are considered "solar-capable".

The climate protection goals, which have since been amended in line with the Paris Agreement, envisage reducing CO2 emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and becoming climate-neutral by 2045.

But if the previous development in Wiesbaden continues linearly, these goals cannot be achieved.

This is also the assessment of the head of the environmental department, Klaus Friedrich: "Something is happening, but not to the necessary extent."

In the case of greenhouse gases, an annual savings rate of five percent is actually possible, but only one percent is achieved.

There are too many obstacles to greater progress: there is a lot of resistance to the use of wind energy and geothermal energy and the renovation of old buildings.

And there is a lack of clear responsibilities and obligations in Wiesbaden.

Friedrich hopes that concrete progress will be possible in the future on the basis of the energy and greenhouse gas balance and a heating plan.

"We're running out of time," fears Martin Lommel from the Wiesbaden Climate Protection Advisory Board, which was founded in 2018.

According to data from the greenhouse gas balance, business and industry in Wiesbaden are the biggest sources of carbon dioxide emissions with a share of 53 percent.

It is followed by the transport sector with 24 percent and private households with 21 percent.

Natural gas is the most important energy source in Wiesbaden, accounting for around a third of consumption.

Schools and swimming pools are the biggest energy consumers

For the first time, the local politicians also have a detailed view of the Wiesbaden city group.

Accordingly, energy consumption rose from 2018 to 2019 from 132,000 to 137,000 megawatt hours, only to fall to 124,700 megawatt hours in the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

Carbon dioxide emissions fell from 2018 to 2020 by 8,000 tons to 41,000 tons.

As expected, the biggest energy consumers are schools and swimming pools.

From the point of view of the energy expert Hans Jürgen Gräf, who compiled the balance sheet, climate change is above all a “heat transition”.

The city group is only responsible for two percent of energy consumption.

But he has a role model function for companies and citizens, and only in this field does politics have direct access.

The balance sheet presented to the environmental committee was not well received by local politicians.

Martin Kraft (Die Grünen) spoke of “devastating” numbers, and his party friend Konny Küpper accused those responsible of serious omissions since the decisions of 2019.

At that time, "everything that needs to be done was explained".

But the resolutions did not result in administrative action.

The importance of climate protection has not yet arrived in Wiesbaden,” said the visibly disappointed city councilor.

Moving away from gas in the long term

The head of the environmental department, Friedrich, pointed out that Wiesbaden has a particularly large number of old buildings, some of which are listed.

The city councilor wants a solution for exactly these Wiesbaden-typical old buildings with ten residential units.

The committee also made it clear that moving away from fossil fuels such as natural gas, which is very common, is possible across the board at best in the medium to long term.

The expansion of district heating is a long-term perspective, said Kowol.

But the expansion of the pipeline network does not happen overnight.

Kowol also pointed out that the waste-to-energy plant currently under construction would not bring any liberation in this respect: only around six percent of the heat requirement of 2250 gigawatt hours could be expected from the power plant.

Nevertheless, district heating makes "absolutely sense" for old buildings, while, according to energy expert and heat register author Kerstin Bohn, decentralized solutions such as heat pumps for old buildings require renovation and thermal insulation.

With district heating, which is by no means just a transitional technology, it is important

how this heat is generated centrally.

Faster progress in climate protection would be possible in the transport sector: But there, according to a realistic head of the environmental department, Kowol, "the resistance is also great".