Germany’s capital Berlin will serve as a testing ground for a European project backed by online retailer Amazon.com to work out how best to revive and expand city green spaces, which can help protect residents from rising heat and floods. From June, environmental charity The Nature Conservancy (TNC) will work with the west Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to map its surface and put together a plan to plant more trees, grass and flowers, and restore wetland areas.
Amazon will provide 3.75 million euros ($4 million) for the work to reduce climate change risks and boost species biodiversity in three urban areas in Germany over the next five years, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The money comes from a $100-million climate fund, announced by the e-commerce giant last autumn as part of a pledge to cut its carbon emissions to net-zero by 2040. The German initiative is the fund’s first allocation in Europe, after a $10-million commitment to restore and conserve 4 million acres of forest in the United States.
Just in 2019, Berlin suffered floods when Storm Axel brought heavy rainfall in May, and then experienced at least 500 deaths linked to summer heatwaves, pushing the city state to declare a climate emergency.Kerstin Pfliegner, director of TNC Germany, said the new project would identify local climate risks and spaces that could be used to reduce those across Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, with the areas also providing leisure opportunities and habitat for vital pollinating insects.
Recent lockdowns in many cities, to curb the coronavirus pandemic, have shown how important urban green space is to residents, she added, as people have been required to remain close to their homes while getting exercise and fresh air. In Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of nearly 339,000 inhabitants, places targeted for greening could include disused land owned by the German railway, roadsides, and rooftops and courtyards of schools and buildings, she said. Ralf Kleber, country manager for Amazon Germany, said TNC and its municipal partners would use a science-based approach to develop a model that can be applied in other cities.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Finnish site 
Global site