Renewable Energy – Unleashing the Full Potential

The global energy system needs to decarbonise significantly, to achieve the strate-gic objective set by the worldwide community at the UN Climate Change Confer-ence held in Paris in 2015, limiting global warming to well below 2 °C compared with pre-industrial levels. Climate researchers have since warned that global warming should be limited to a maximum of 1.5 °C, so as not to jeopardise the long-term stabilisation of the climate (Steffen et al., 2018). If such an objective is to be met, climate change strategies for Germany to become CO2-neutral by 2035 are required, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 % compared with 1990 levels by 2025 and by 85 % by 2030 (Wuppertal Institut, 2020). Recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018) support these require-ments analogously for the whole of Europe. Concepts for energy generation, exist-ing buildings, and industry and mobility at the local level must be elaborated and implemented as part of a collaborative process, including the involvement of (local) civil society initiatives and experts (RLS, 2020).