German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched on July 2009 a new funding activity to help regions imagining new ways to adapt to climate change and its consequences on everyday life and economy.



KLIMZUG is presented as an initiative for "the implementation of climate adaptation to be achieved through regional networks between science, companies, administration and public agencies. KLIMZUG wants to pool the strengths of the stakeholders by these cooperative networks and to integrate anticipated changes in processes of regional planning and development. This is to contribute to a timely climate adaptation of long-term sustainability and to strengthening the German economy."

KLIMZUG is already getting developped in 7 regional projects in Germany.

Learn more on the KLIMZUG website

Although there is a fairly strong consensus amongst the players when remote time horizons are involved (cf. ‘’factor 4’’ – F4 - by 2050), said consensus tends to weaken when shorter horizons supposedly geared to implementing factor 4, like the “3x20” in 2020, are considered and is virtually non-existent when it comes to establishing next year’s budget (the energy-climate tax for 2010 is a good example of this). In fact, such overlapping time frames raise a number of issues and lead to confusion.

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The initiative to organize a local “Imagine” event was taken on 3 September 2009 by the city of Bielsko Biala within the framework of the EuroBeskid region, which involves Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The event gathered around 50 persons.

The city of Bielsko-Biala is going ahead in various ways. A comprehensive policy and an appropriate staffing, as well as political commitment gives the city a stronger reputation in Poland as an advanced city within energy issues. This event is to be seen within the growing importance of Energy and Territory issues and the concerns of other polish local authorities actors like PNEC (Association of Municipalities Polish Network 'Energie-Cités) and ZMP (Association of Polish Cities), which are putting energy issues in the agenda.

This success shows that there are opportunities to organize IMAGINE events at the local event, involving local actors inspired by the results of the IMAGINE think-tank, and in turn inspiring the global IMAGINE discussions.

An international planning competition and a participative approach, these are the main characteristics of the Greater Helsinki Vision 2050. The project aims to create a shared vision for the region's fourteen municipalities. In 2007, the municipalities, the Ministry of the Environment and the Finnish Association of Architects held an international planning competition. The prized entries gave new and unprejudiced solutions for the development of the region's living, land use and traffic challenges. The prized entries are now available for commenting and re-development, and will form the vision for future Helsinki region, merging the views of experts and residents about the future of the metropolitan area.

'Online until the end of 2008, the Helsinki region 2050 website will introduce the fruits of the competition and the re-developed vision work of the region. Also residents of the region have an unique opporturnity to contribute to the development of their own living areas, by commenting and re-developing the prized entries. The comments of the residents will be included in the process, in which a new vision for Helsinki region is created. Therefore, this is an unique opportunity to affect on how you will be living in 2050.'

The competition entries and the comments gathered from the residents, will form the base for the vision work, giving an videa of the needs and demands for the future Helsinki.

More information on the Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 website.

The City of Bielsko-Biała is putting the IMAGINE initiative into practice and hold an IMAGINE event at the level of the city, inviting key players and citizens to discuss the energy future of their territory.

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