Project Phase 4

After the successful completion of the courses in Project Phase Three, which had to be partially held online due to corona, the klimafit courses will once again take place in 2021. From spring 2021, citizens will be made ‘climate fit’ at 73 locations across Germany.

In addition to the regions Northern and Southern Germany, where klimafit courses are already offered in numerous communities, from spring this year, there will be an increased number of klimafit courses in Central Germany. As well as new course locations for 2021, there were also additions to the klimafit team, with two new regional contact partners (or Hubs) for Berlin (LIFE e.V.) and North Rhine-Westphalia (KlimaDiskurs.NRW). The new locations in Saxony are coordinated by WWF Germany and supported by Saxony’s State Centre for Political Education. Just as they were last year, the following partners are also on board: ecolo - Agentur for Ökologie and Kommunikation, and ifpro for the regions Northern and Southern Germany.

In 2021, 73 municipalities will offer klimafit courses at their community colleges. Back in the winter semester 2017 / 2018, the course took place for the first time at six community colleges in the southwest. In the following year, there were 15 courses, and by 2020, with 34 locations, the number had more than doubled. In 2021, the courses will once again be supported by the local community colleges, climate protection officers, and regional institutions and initiatives with extensive experience in the areas of climate protection and climate adaption.

As in the previous phases, Phase Four of klimafit focuses on providing information on the causes and consequences of climate change at both the global and local level, and on raising public awareness for regional climate protection and adaptation. The local aspects of the course enable participants to see the effects of climate change in their home area. Furthermore, klimafit encourages participants to become personally involved in climate protection, to discuss climate change with others, to find other like-minded people and to network with local climate initiatives. The course consists of four face-to-face and two online sessions, and offers those taking part the opportunity to meet climate researchers and experts on mobility, diet and energy.

Due to the ongoing lockdown, in spring 2021 the klimafit courses will be held online, with a new, specially developed course concept.

klimafit course schedule:

•    Session 1 Fundamentals of climate change and introduction to the challenges for local communities
•    Session 2 Causes of climate change and climate protection at the municipal level
•    Session 3 Expert dialogue with leading climate researchers (online)
•    Session 4 Regional impacts of climate change / What can I do to help?
•    Session 5 Expert tips on energy, diet and mobility (online)
•    Session 6 Climate adaptation – how does it work?

You can find a detailed description of the course content under Project Phase Three. Session 5, in addition to the topics energy and mobility, will also focus on diet. Furthermore, in Project Phase Four, the klimafit Challenge element will be expanded. Introduced in Phase Three, it’s a core element of the course and is intended to motivate participants to become involved in climate protection and encourage them to take action. It can be used to calculate how concrete measures reduce personal greenhouse-gas emissions. Participants can measure their emission reductions with an online calculator developed for klimafit. This online tool is available at www.klimafit-challenge.de, and can be used by anyone.As in previous years, the course will be evaluated so that it can be tailored to participants’ and course leaders’ needs. The course evaluations from each year will then be compared and used to improve the content.

The course locations are in the regions Northern and Southern Germany, as well as Central Germany. Details of the klimafit locations are available at WWF Germany.

A few of the locations are now offering the klimafit course for the third or fourth time. In the town of Emmendingen, near Freiburg, the community college is even holding the klimafit course for the fifth time. klimafit is aimed at citizens interested in helping their towns or communities to become more climate friendly – be they decision-makers, local politicians, those directly affected (like farmers), or anyone with a general interest. You can enrol at your participating community college (VHS).