The state capital of Mainz has compiled its municipal greenhouse gas inventory for the year 2024. The inventory captures the current status of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and allocates them to the various sectors and energy sources. This serves as the quantitative basis for Mainz’s climate protection concept, “Master Plan 100% Climate Protection,” enabling the city to track trends in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and compare them with the target scenario.

As part of the process of compiling the greenhouse gas inventory and climate protection scenarios, the state capital of Mainz also unveiled its new platform, zukunftklima.mainz.de. This platform makes emissions trends, climate protection scenarios, and the status of measure implementation transparent and easily accessible. In this way, the city of Mainz is intensifying its efforts to engage all residents of Mainz on the path to climate neutrality and to keep them transparently informed. In addition, the platform is intended to help regularly assess whether Mainz, the state capital, remains on the right track toward climate neutrality.

The goal of climate neutrality is to be achieved through a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a 50% reduction in final energy consumption, ideally by 2035, but no later than 2045—in line with the federal climate protection target.

Key
figures from the 2024 GHG inventory at a glance:
• 56% reduction in GHG emissions since
1990• 42% reduction in final energy consumption since 1990•
Reduction in GHG emissions per resident: 64% progress toward the goal of climate neutrality.
• Reduction in final energy consumption: 83% progress toward the goal of climate neutrality.

GHG emissions have fallen by 56% since 1990, from 3,466 to 1,516 metric metric tons of CO₂ equivalent in 2024. Measured per resident, this represents a 64% reduction. Final energy consumption fell by 42% over the same period. This means that 83% of the reduction target to halve final energy consumption has already been achieved, and 56% of the reduction target for GHG emissions has been met. The trends vary across the sectors under consideration. The decline in emissions to date stems largely from the industrial sector (down 80%), while the transportation sector is only about 12% below 1990 levels and is currently the second-largest source of emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions are distributed within the respective sectors as follows for the reporting year 2024:

The climate protection scenarios developed in addition to the balance sheet illustrate possible assumptions for the future. These scenarios make it clear that the climate protection measures adopted as part of the “100% Climate Protection” Master Plan, as well as the associated strategies for municipal heat planning and a climate-neutral city administration, have significant reduction potential: 602 kilotons (kt) of CO₂ equivalent.

Janina Steinkrüger, Commissioner for Environment and Mobility, emphasizes: “Climate neutrality is fundamentally achievable—according to our scenarios, by around 2040, provided we make consistent efforts of our own and implement additional measures. This would place us in the middle of our target range of 2035 to 2045. With its resolution on climate neutrality, the City Council has already acknowledged that we are also dependent on reliable federal policy frameworks to achieve this. Nevertheless, the city has concrete leverage to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Mainz. The calculated potentials show how important it is to consistently implement the ‘100% Climate Protection’ master plan and the municipal heating plan and to continue on the path we have chosen.
With our new platform, zukunftklima.mainz.de, we are making our progress transparent and regularly informing the residents of Mainz about our path to climate neutrality. If we want to get as close as possible to the target year of 2035 for climate neutrality, everyone must pitch in: policymakers at the federal, state, and city levels, as well as the public administration, the business community, and the residents of Mainz.”