Improving the assessment of the climate impact of the Urban Development Support programme

Cities and municipalities are under increasing pressure to effectively address the consequences of climate change – such as more frequent heat waves and heavy rainfall – while simultaneously continuing to actively reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions. 

For decades the Urban Development Support programme („Städtebauförderung“) has been a key instrument for urban renewal and development. Its aim is to promote sustainable urban development in the economic, social, cultural, and ecological spheres. Climate mitigation and climate change adaptation play an important role in this context. The administrative agreement underlying the Urban Development Support programme stipulates that measures for climate protection and adaptation must be implemented as a prerequisite for funding. However, monitoring of the programme does not yet collect sufficiently detailed information on the implemented measures to allow an assessment of impacts on climate mitigation and adaptation. 

The project therefore develops a methodology to systematically capture the impact of the Urban Development Support programme in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation. To this end, the project team investigates datasets from public and private sources that are suitable for comprehensive monitoring. In parallel, a central task is the development of proposals to extend the existing monitoring questionnaire, which are subsequently evaluated in interviews with local authorities from all federal states. The Oeko-Institut is responsible for assessing climate protection impacts while the IÖW focuses on the improvement of capturing climate adaptation impacts.