The „Transatlantic Urban Climate Dialogue“ aims to strengthen the transfer and application  of sustainable energy policies between Germany and North America. This project builds on the work started over a decade ago among communities in Northern Virginia, Ontario, Canada and Germany (Stuttgart, the Ruhr Valley and Hamburg) to make meaningful improvements in energy efficiency, applications of renewable energies, “green” design and transportation.  For this purpose the FU Berlin’s Environmental Policy Research Center has started a unique two-year problem-focused, goal-oriented and geographically-targeted dialogue involving North American and German policymakers, governmental and non-governmental technical experts from academia will be initiated. This dialogue seeks to deepen understanding about shared transatlantic challenges with local energy and climate policy development and implementation. The project seeks to inform the dialogue about the development and implementation of meaningful local energy and climate mitigation planning measures in Germany, Canada and the US.  Specific themes to be covered over this two year dialogue include energy efficient buildings, building retrofits, district energy systems, renewable energy development and financing and regional restructuring. Furthermore the means to strengthen and formalize the transfer of innovative sub-national energy and climate policies between German and North American metropolitan areas will be explored.

It is planned to organize four workshops:

• October 2011 – Ruhrregion (Gelsenkirchen)
• May 2012 – Northern Virginia
• November 2012 – Stuttgart
• Spring 2013 – Guelph, Ontario.