Neubrandenburg (dpa/mv) - The city of Neubrandenburg - the third-largest municipality in the northeast - has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 75 percent since 1990 and wants to become climate-neutral by 2050. This was said by climate protection officer Christian Wolff on Wednesday at a conference on the effects of climate change on urban development. One of the practical effects of climate protection is that the culture park - as a "green lung" between the city center and Lake Tollense - will not be built on. "In the coming heat waves, we have to ensure that the air cooled by the lake can continue to flow through green spaces and the city," said Wolff.

According to Wolff, emissions of the greenhouse gas were 1.1 million tons a year in 1990. Now it is 260,000 tons. Above all, the switch from fossil fuels to more climate-friendly energy sources and the population decline after 1990 contributed to this. In 1989, Neubrandenburg, the district town at the time, had more than 90,000 inhabitants. In the 1990s, many people emigrated for job reasons - as they did throughout the state. In the meantime, around 65,000 residents have been living in the largest city in the Mecklenburg Lake District for several years.

In order to further reduce the emission of gases that are harmful to the climate, the municipal utility as a subsidiary wants to promote, among other things, the expansion of solar thermal energy, hot water from solar energy, and geothermal systems, i.e. hot water from the earth. "Now we have an average temperature of nine degrees a year in the city. If nothing happens, this would rise to 13.5 degrees by 2050," Wolff explained.