Nationwide climate bet accepted

August 30, 2021

Under the motto ‘Let's do it now!’, the City of Stuttgart and the Climate Protection Foundation Baden-Württemberg accepted “The Climate Bet” on July 27, 2021 at Schlossplatz in Stuttgart, from Climate Bet initiator, Dr. Michael Bilharz. He is attempting to reduce CO2 emissions by 1 million tons by the next World Climate Conference in Glasgow on November 1, 2021. Proportionally, this results in around 10,000 tons of CO2 for the city of Stuttgart.

The partner organizations involved in achieving this goal are the University of Stuttgart, the Hochschule für Technik, Daimler AG and Stadtwerken Stuttgart, together with the City of Stuttgart. Prof. Jan Knippers, Vice Rector for Research, and Dr. Elif Köksoy, Sustainability Manager in the newly established Green Office, represented the University of Stuttgart and accepted the climate bet.

By officially accepting the bet, the University of Stuttgart is committed to mobilizing as many university members to reduce CO2 as much as possible by November. There are two possible ways of participating; either by recording various everyday activities using the CO2 avatar. Using this information, the Avatar can calculate CO2 reductions so far and in the future, up until November 1, 2021. Or, donations can be made to selected climate protection projects whose positive effect on the CO2 budget is determined by the CO2 avatar. The city of Stuttgart's achievements will be analyzed using the postal code of the participants entered in the CO2 avatar. If the bet is lost, a task will be specified that is designed to benefit the climate.

Baden-Württemberg is the first federal state to accept the bet, sponsored by the Climate Protection Foundation Baden-Württemberg. Among participating cities in Baden-Württemberg, the state capital Stuttgart currently holds first place, but there is still a lot of room for improvement if the goal of saving approximately 10,000 tons of CO2 is to be reached. There is also room for improvement in terms of the number of participants - the more that take part, the easier it is to reduce CO2.

Participating in the climate bet is a great practice run on the road to climate neutrality. How much can we reduce CO2 using simple measures? What still needs to be done? To tackle the huge task of reaching climate neutrality, we need to assess and measure our actions as individuals. Get involved and help us kick the ton, so that we can make a bold statement in Glasgow: climate protection works if we work together and if we do it now!

Green Office

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