Â鶹ÎÞÂë°æ

A citizen's initiative had gathered enough signatures for the German capital to hold a vote on whether it should rapidly bring forward its plans to reduce its climate impact. However, not enough voters in Berlin supported a push to make the German capital by 2030, the .

The city of Berlin, like Germany as a whole, aims to become climate neutral by 2045. Its forces it to cut carbon dioxide emissions 70 percent by 2030, 90 percent by 2040 and more than 95 percent by 2045, compared to 1990 levels. In , emissions reductions were at 50 percent.

Climate scientists and activists have called out these targets for being too weak – they point to the dwindling amount of CO2 that can be released without heating the planet 1.5 degrees Celsius. If Germany were to emit no more than its fair share of it, the country would need to be climate neutral more than a decade earlier than it plans, according to the .

The proposal being put to the vote on 26 March applied the same logic to the city of Berlin to call for a . A campaign group called Klimaneustart — with the support of local environmental groups, the environmental search engine Ecosia, and the German branch of student protest group Fridays for Future — wants to bring the date for carbon neutrality forward by 15 years, and also include other greenhouse gasses in the target. Emissions would have to fall at least 95 percent by 2030 and carbon offsets would have to be avoided unless there were no alternatives.

The update would also make the language in the law stronger, replacing words like "target" with "duty" and "achieve" with "fulfill." An intermediary target of a 70 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions would jump forward from 2030 to 2025.

"A lot of people see climate politics as a marathon," said Julia Epp, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chair of the Berlin branch of Friends of the Earth Germany, which supports the campaign. "But it's more that we need to sprint because we started too slow."

If enough people vote yes, the Berlin senate the proposed law amendment — and come up with a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in 7 years. But the city parliament to make further amendments to the law. 

Only German citizens over the age of 18 who are registered in Berlin are eligible to vote in the referendum. Public opinion is slightly in favour of higher climate ambition. A from research company Civey conducted in January and February found 46 percent of Berliners were in favour of moving the climate neutrality target forward to 2030, while 42 percent opposed it and 12 percent were undecided.

But the results of the referendum if at least 25 percent of those who can vote agree with the proposal — about 613,000 yes votes — leaving some supporters worried about turnout. "It's a big struggle to motivate people to actually go to the referendum," said Epp. "We have a lot of people who are interested in climate politics and who will definitely go, but one fourth of Berlin's population? That's a lot of people."

To increase turnout, Germany often schedules public votes to coincide with elections. This time, the Berlin government has scheduled the referendum on climate neutral