ABSTRACT
In Stuttgart, neither place-branding nor claims to have a global moral responsibility for climate protection play a significant role. There is almost no political ambition to be a frontrunner or a role model in national or international climate protection. By contrast, local debates about the climate are marked by a high degree of self-reference: since ‘climate’ is a highly visible common phenomenon in Stuttgart, the city is primarily concerned with solving its own topographically induced problems (‘thermal stress’, air pollution). In contrast to Munich and Frankfurt and due to its location within a valley basin (as an ‘attribute of the physical world’ according to the IAD concept; see the ‘Introduction’), climate adaptation – focusing on prevention of overheating the urban ‘body’ by protecting fresh air corridors and air exchange channels – has been a highpriority topic on the city’s agenda since the 1930s. In Stuttgart, climate change is perceived as a direct and immediate local threat. To improve the local quality of life, to prevent the damaging effects of excessive heat on human health and to make Stuttgart an attractive location for residents and business in the context of competition among various geographical locations, the municipal administration (particularly the Amt für Stadtklimatologie) has acquired enormous expertise. This expertise is based on everyday knowledge accumulated over decades as well as simulation, modelling and experimentation. While climate adaptation is well established as a result of being subject to a threatening climate and also well equipped to cope with this challenge, climate mitigation is a relatively new topic in Stuttgart (since 1997; cf. LHS 1997). Climate mitigation is framed by an interdependent set of debates comprising of energy economising (especially in the building sector), cost savings and, as a sub-goal, CO2 reduction. Therefore, issue relabelling in the sense of emphasising the additional economic benefits of climate mitigation (as an incentive for individuals, the city and the local economy alike) is of utmost importance when it comes to legitimising and justifying climate protection in Stuttgart. Both aspects, the scientific insight in and sensual perception of ‘climate’ in the Stuttgart valley (adaptation), and the equation of climate mitigation policy with local energy-and cost-saving policy help to ‘immunise’ the local knowledge order against criticism.
