Mit Partizipation zur Klimaneutralität? Das kooperative Beteiligungsverfahren „Bonn4Future – Wir fürs Klima“ - Standort

Municipal commitments to climate neutrality have increased in the context of sustainable urban development in recent years. In many places, citizens are an important stakeholder group that is involved in negotiating the corresponding transformation processes towards climate neutrality. In Bonn, the city council has set itself the goal of reaching municipal climate neutrality by 2035. The Bonn transition town initiative then applied for and designed the 2-year participatory process called “Bonn4Future—Us for the climate” and carried it out in cooperation with the city administration. Based on the mixed methods approach of the accompanying scientific evaluation, the extent to which the cooperative participation process was able to contribute to broad participation and political involvement is analysed in this paper.Starting with an introduction to municipal participation processes in the context of climate neutrality and possible quality criteria for the design of the process, we analyse the implementation of “Bonn4Future’s” participation process and demonstrate the challenges of the process. Based on the results, recommendations for action can be derived on how municipal and civil society actors can tackle the urgent task of urban climate adaptation through collaboration and broad participation. Overall, a broad-based participation process with sufficient resources can serve as a possible starting point for longer-term cooperation of organised civil society, administration and local politics.