#rp20 Speaker Heinrich Strößenreuther — A Climate Act for reaching the 1.5 Degree Target

Heinrich Strößenreuther is a Business Informatics scientist, an entrepreneur and an activist for cycling and the environment. His entrepreneurial acitivites are strongly tied to his interests in climate protection, sustainability and mobility in cities. He’s the director of the “Agency for Clever Cities” and founder of the initiative which organised the “Berlin Bicycle Referendum” which successfully collected more than 100,000 valid signatures leading to Berlin’s “Mobility Act” in 2018.
The goal behind all of this was—and still is—to make cities more bike-friendly and to call for change in transport policy as well as raising popularity for a “traffic turnaround”.

Since autumn 2019 Heinrich Strößenreuther dedicates his work increasingly to reaching the 1.5°C target. His NGO GermanZero aims to lobby for policy makers to adopt a legislative package by 2022 in order for Germany to become climate-neutral by 2035. German Zero’s 1.5°C legislative package includes a CO2 tax reform and a comprehensive package of climate-protection measures with the most important tool being a 1.5°C climate act.

Find Heinrich Strößenreuther on Twitter here.

ASAP—3 questions for … Heinrich Strößenreuther

We asked Heinrich about his keynote at #rp20, the most pressing issues for him at the moment and his recommended readings, music or movies.

What topic will you talk about at re:publica?
"My topic will be the 1.5°C Climate Act by GermanZero. I will demonstrate why this campaign is necessary for the act, why the logic behind campaigns from the last three years is convincing and compelling, why we think we can succeed with this and what kind of help we need for it."

True to this year’s motto—what’s the most pressing issue for you personally at the moment?
"Writing the world’s first 1.5°C Climate Act, convincing 235 member of the Bundestag that Germany needs to be climate-neutral by 2035, raising over five million Euro for this campaign in 2020 and surviving all that stress that comes along with it."

What’s your reading, movie or music recommendation that everyone should check out ASAP?
"My non-fiction books of the year were “Tipping Points” (Malcom Gladwell), “Rework” (Jason Fried), “Selbst Denken” (Harald Welzer) of course, „Ego is the Enemy“ (Ryan Holiday), „Alles wird anders“ (Bernd Ulrich), „Good strategy, bad strategy“ (Richard Ramelt), „Framing“ (Elisabeth Wehling), as well as „Berlin-Standard – ein Bildband und Sachbuch über moderne Radverkehrspolitik für Bürgermeister und Politikerinnen“ (by me :-). My movies for policy changers are “Wag the Dog”, “No!”, “Lord of War” und “As It Is in Heaven”. As for music, you should have sung these by yourself once: “Messias” by Händel, “Freude schöner Götterfunken” and “Sing for the Climate”."