Climate Protection Dialogue – Change Agent Courses

Climate Protection Dialogue project Municipalities are playing an increasingly important role in climate protection. The three-year Climate Protection 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 protection, 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 protection conferences, a nationwide day of municipal climate protection, and short studies of local transformation processes. In this project, ifeu focused primarily on the development of further training opportunities for climate protection 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 protection concepts in municipalities in the long term. Range of courses Training courses for municipal climate protection 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 protection managers had taken part in the basic training. Another 40 climate protection 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 protection in communities. The Change Agent courses came to an end for the time being when the Climate Protection 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 protection were also discussed during the workshop on taking action in relation to municipal climate protection at the ICCA 2015 in Hanover.