People Power: How citizens in Hamburg are using direct democracy to push for more ambitious climate policies

Merle Clara Riebandt, MSc Environmental Policy and Regulation

In Hamburg, a port city in the north of Germany, a broad coalition of active citizens and civil society organizations, initiated by the environmental organization Fridays for Future, formed last year to push their legislature to adopt more ambitious climate policies. They are not asking for much: net-zero emissions by 2040 instead of 2045, annual climate protection targets, and anchoring social equity in law. These are the demands of the citizens’ initiative “Hamburger Zukunftsinitiative” to their government, the Senate of Hamburg.  

The citizens’ initiative turned to direct democracy as a way of achieving what would be one of the most ambitious climate protection laws of all German states. Hamburg, one of Germany’s three cities serving as states, has a three-step procedure through which citizens can push politicians to implement or change a law. First is the drafting of the law followed by public signature collection. 10,000 signatures were needed to support the legislative text proposed by the initiative, which can be translated as “Initiative for the Future”. By January 2024, within just four weeks, they gathered more than double that number. The governing parties, the  Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) , continue to refuse implementing the more ambitious text. Therefore, in September, it was time for the next round of signature collection. For the second step, the threshold was higher: 5% of Hamburg citizens needed to be in support, equalling ca. 65,000 signatures. Again, the “Hamburger Zukunftsinitiative” exceeded expectations and collected more than 106,000 signatures— making it the most successful petition for a referendum in the last thirteen years. 

But what exactly are their demands?

The first one is to break down the interim goals for emission reduction into annual targets. These binding yearly targets would come with legal obligations for the Senate to take additional measures if the targets were missed. The city has already adopted plans to reduce emissions by 70% by 2030 and by 98% by 2045 (compared to 1990 as a baseline year), but the yearly emission reduction remains unclear to meet these targets. Annual targets, the initiative argues, create planning security for the economy and ensure transparency.

Image: Hamburger Zukunftsentscheid

The second demand is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040 instead of 2045, a target that seven other states in Germany have already set. While emission reduction must be achieved at a much greater rate than is currently being done, policymakers must also consider how policies impact people differently depending on their social context, such as their financial resources, race, and gender.  Therefore, their third demand is to include a binding guarantee for social equity in the law— a guiding principle no other German state has legally obliged so far. 

As Lou Töllner, spokesperson for the initiative, puts it: “Global warming is threatening to break the 1.5°C barrier and international climate protection negotiations are once again falling short of expectations. Civil society is needed now more than ever for constructive and forward-looking policies.” Let’s be clear: their demands are not radical, but whether their implementation would lead to substantial policy change remains to be seen. However, when adopted, the new legislation would adhere to the wishes of many citizens of Hamburg for their government to reduce emissions more ambitiously and ensure a socially just implementation.
 
Through their initiative, Hamburg’s citizens are part of a climate movement that increasingly turns to new tactics, making innovative use of laws and political instruments. In Switzerland, citizens voted in favour of more ambitious climate measures, using their system of referendums last year. In Hamburg, step three follows in autumn 2025, when Hamburg’s citizens will vote on the referendum. If approved, its outcome could influence Hamburg’s climate policymaking for decades to come.