Voters in Berlin are being asked to decide Sunday whether they want the German capital to be "climate neutral" by 2030, meaning it won't be able to contribute to global warming any more.
The New York Times reports that the referendum, which requires the support of at least 25% of the city's 2.4 million eligible voters, calls for Berlin to slash its emissions by 80% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
"This is a very ambitious target, we're clear about that," Jessamine Davis, a spokesperson for the group behind the referendum, tells the AP.
"And it won't be easy."
But critics warn that if the referendum passes, Berlin will be bankrupt within a few years.
The group behind the referendum has received more than $1.3 million in donations from US-based philanthropists, most of which came from German-American investors Albert Wenger and Susan Danziger, the AP reports.
If the referendum passes, Berlin would be bound to the country's national target of cutting emissions by 20% by 2045, which is also in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord.
But the group's plan to redesign the city's heating network would cost more than $3 billion.
"This is a replicable model for the rest of the world
Read the Entire Article
A customized collection of news from foundations from around the Web.
Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.