Climate Action Dialogue – Change Agent Courses

Climate Action Dialogue project

Municipalities are playing an increasingly important role in climate action. The three-year Climate Action Dialogue project involved adelphi as project coordinator, the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu), ifeu, the Climate Alliance, the Pestel Institute and the EBUS Institute. The project was designed to support the ongoing development of municipal climate action, in particular through exchanging ideas, networking and consulting. The project team developed a range of further training opportunities, and designed and organised conferences, workshops and workshop discussions. There were also plans for national climate action conferences, a nationwide day of municipal climate action, and short studies of local transformation processes.

In this project, ifeu focused primarily on the development of further training opportunities for climate action managers and other managers of a similar level (supporting and developing Change Agents). The main objective was to develop key qualifications for the implementation of climate action concepts in municipalities in the long term.

Range of courses

Training courses for municipal climate action managers took place in Germany from 2013 until the end of 2015. A total of 5 basic courses (each lasting 12.5 days) and 10 advanced courses (each lasting 1.5 days) were organised between 2013 and the end of 2015. By the end of the project, more than 60 climate action managers had taken part in the basic training. Another 40 climate action managers took part in the advanced course (prior attendance of the basic course was not required). The main issues covered on the advanced course included CO₂ balance sheets, mobility and consumption, public relations work and consolidation of climate action in communities.

The Change Agent courses came to an end for the time being when the Climate Action Dialogue project finished in December 2015. There are currently no plans to continue the project.

Anyone interested in Change Agent courses can continue to contact ifeu and will be informed as soon as new courses are advertised (contact: Miriam Dingeldey).

The options for incorporating a Change Agent course into the training provision for municipal climate action were also discussed during the workshop on taking action in relation to municipal climate protection at the ICCA 2015 in Hanover.