Class, CO2 and urban climate change mitigation: On saving energy in a post-industrial German city

Abstract

As part of its urban redevelopment strategies, the city of Bremerhaven transformed itself into Germany’s centre for the offshore wind energy industry. Locally produced wind turbines have come to embody the promises of the city’s regeneration in the context of the nation’s once ambitious efforts to switch to renewable energies. The Energiewende should have resulted in a sustainable future for Bremerhaven, both in economic and ecological terms. However, as Germany’s poorest city, Bremerhaven continues to face severe social problems, from high unemployment to widespread poverty. Under these circumstances, the city pledged to fight the impact of non-renewable energy by becoming a Climate City. It started a process that shall result in the wholesale transformation of the city and its citizens. Bremerhaven’s climate change mitigation efforts involve various projects of energy education, which interpellate the whole strata of the local population into reducing the impact of their energy consumption. This chapter unpacks the logics and effects of such attempts at producing energy-efficient citizens by exploring how local activists conceptualise energy impacts in the context of urban poverty and deprivation. Whilst most of my informants take issues of class into consideration, they frame mitigation as an ethical, not a political project, falling short in demands for energy justice and citizens’ rights to secure environmental futures.