Grüne on the environment and animal welfare

The Greens want more trash cans, more frequent emptying, public information and more staff to tackle litter on streets and squares. Those responsible should be penalized consistently; temporary video surveillance would be examined at badly affected spots.

The Greens want clean streets and squares. There should be more trash cans. More staff should clear illegal dumps. People who dump trash should pay a higher fine. Cameras should be considered in some places.

Local advisory councils and residents would be involved in choosing sites for new trash cans, alongside multilingual campaigns on correct disposal. Resident registration data would be compared regularly and automatically with registered trash bin volume instead of only by hand in individual cases. Higher fines would partly pay for the extra staff at the city sanitation service, and the defect-reporting app would be promoted. Whether landlords can help with information would also be examined. According to the program, video surveillance comes into consideration where the public order service is not enough.

The Greens want to adapt dikes and barriers to the effects of climate change and turn Bremen and Bremerhaven into sponge cities. Rainwater is to be held in the cities so it can seep away and evaporate. A heat protection plan is also planned.

The Greens want to protect Bremen from floods. Dikes should become stronger. Rainwater should soak into the ground in the city. For this, less ground should be covered with asphalt. There should be a protection plan for hot summers.

Unsealing surfaces, green roofs, retention areas and infiltration areas are meant to prevent flooding from heavy rain; a heavy-rain advice service helps people protect their property. Subsidy programs for removing asphalt already exist, and unsealing is to be considered in every conversion project. New buildings are to go up preferably on already sealed land and be approved only if rainwater can seep away and evaporate on site to a sufficient degree. The "Bremer Standard" for construction projects is to be expanded, including a minimum share of green space per resident in new neighborhoods.

The Greens want to give public green spaces more weight in urban planning and gear their upkeep more toward biodiversity. The platform justifies this with the importance of green space for health and well-being, especially in poorer districts with few parks and gardens.

The Greens want to protect parks and green spaces in the city. The upkeep should help animals and plants. The city's green space agency should get more money and staff. Districts with little green space should get fixed minimum amounts.

The Umweltbetrieb Bremen (the city's green space agency) is to be staffed, funded and organized so that it can provide climate-adapted, ecological maintenance. New road projects would have to be coordinated with it. Districts with little green space would get minimum standards for green area per resident. The budget for public spaces and their planning would rise, and parks would be easier to use for cultural events. The cold-air corridors named in the landscape program would stay free of buildings, as would the Horner Spitze, where commercial development plans would be reassessed.

The Greens want to issue a new tree protection ordinance and raise the number of street trees in Bremen to 100,000 by 2040. The platform sees trees as highly valuable in the climate crisis because they provide shade and shape the cityscape.

The Greens want to protect city trees better. There should be a new tree protection rule. Anyone who cuts down a tree must plant more than one new tree. By 2040, Bremen should have 100,000 street trees.

All deciduous and coniferous trees with a girth of 80 centimeters or more would be protected, along with large shrubs, hedges and especially tree-lined avenues. Felling would remain possible but would require many more replacement trees, which should be climate-resilient and insect-friendly. On streets, protecting trees would take priority over parking spaces. The climate forest in Grambke is seen as the start of wider reforestation; land would be set aside across the state and tree sponsorships expanded.

Because of longer dry spells, the Greens want to use water more sparingly and set up water cycles within Bremen. The city would in future obtain a third of its drinking water itself, up from 15 percent today.

Climate change brings more dry periods. So the Greens want to save water. Rainwater should be used more often. Bremen should get more drinking water from its own land.

A strategic water plan is meant to identify ways to save water. Rainwater would be used for gardens, toilets and farming, for example. The Greens want to examine restarting drinking water extraction in Bremerhaven-Wulsdorf for the city of Bremen, which would also relieve residents there who struggle with high groundwater. A campaign with industry and the public would encourage saving water. Public land would be planted only with climate-adapted species, and large sports facilities would get greywater systems.

The Greens want to use the upcoming re-tendering of the water concessions to gain more say at the utility hanseWasser. This is meant to let the public sector keep an eye on prices and respond better to water crises.

The Greens want more influence over the company hanseWasser. The water contracts will soon be awarded again. The Greens want to use this chance. The city should then control prices. Money from the contracts should pay for cleaner water.

Revenue from the contracts would go to water-related climate adaptation and environmental protection. Sewage plants would get a fourth treatment stage, and within four years filters against microplastics would be installed at all acutely polluted sites. The sewer network and retention basins would get more storage capacity so that less untreated wastewater reaches rivers during heavy rain. A monitoring program for selected trace substances is planned for the Seehausen sewage plant and the Weser.

The Greens want the city of Bremen to stop paving over additional land on balance by 2030. Anyone who seals new ground would pay into a fund that finances unsealing elsewhere.

Sealing means building or paving over soil. The Greens want to limit this. Anyone who seals soil should pay into a fund. That money frees up soil somewhere else. From 2030, Bremen should seal no extra soil on balance.

Construction and renovation projects would face fixed requirements for open space, unsealing and greening; the subsidy program for private unsealing would continue. Compensation funds are planned for Bremen and Bremerhaven so that any substantial new sealing of public or private land is offset elsewhere. In road redesigns, the city would look for more unsealing without taking space from walking, cycling and transit. Built-up land would be used more densely, for example with housing above supermarkets. No new settlement would take place in the Osterholzer Feldmark, Ochtumniederung Süd, Blockland or Niedervieland.

The Greens want to raise the Weser dike on the Neustadt side as a top priority and revise all flood protection plans in both cities. The platform points out that about 90 percent of the state's area is at risk of flooding and that climate change is making the danger worse.

Bremen is at high risk of flooding. The Greens want to make the dike in the Neustadt district higher. Other flood plans should also get better. Nobody should build in flood protection areas.

The barrier at the mouth of the Geeste would be renewed as quickly as possible, and building in flood protection areas would stay off limits. According to the platform, the plane trees on the Neustadt dike cannot be reconciled with safety standards because their roots weaken the dike and the trees would not survive pruning. Instead, shallow-rooted trees five to seven meters tall would be planted; eight old trees would remain where the bank is wide. The dike project would also create a riverside promenade with wide paths for cycling and walking and green areas.

The Greens reject new deepening and straightening of waterways, including deepening the Lower Weser. According to the platform, deeper and straighter rivers make floods more dangerous and cause groundwater to drop. Instead, waterways would be restored to a more natural state and made more accessible to people.

The Greens do not want to make the Lower Weser deeper. Deep, straight rivers make floods more dangerous. Rivers should become more natural again. People should get better access to the riverbanks.

The EU Water Framework Directive would be implemented so that waterways reach good status by 2027. Three kilometers of waterways would be restored each year and riparian strips widened by an average of two meters, along with a land pool for riverbanks. Planned projects include a side channel near Atlassee/Hemelinger See and the "Blaues Band" on the Wümme. The Ochtum, Wümme and Geeste rivers would get jetties, lookouts, nature trails and sunbathing lawns. The Greens want to negotiate with Lower Saxony on reducing nitrate in Bremerhaven's waters, and at swimming lakes pollution sources would be examined and more restrooms built.

The Greens want to enlarge protected areas so that they meet European requirements and build a habitat network in both cities by 2030. The reason given is endangered meadow birds, ditch fish, insects and plants in the grassland-and-ditch landscapes.

Rare birds, fish, insects and plants live in Bremen. The Greens want to protect more areas for nature. By 2030, the protected areas should be linked. Such a link is called a habitat network.

As a first step, the Rohrniederung and the Fehrmoor in Bremerhaven and the Weser floodplain in Hemelingen and Arsten in Bremen would be placed under protection. The Sandwehen nature reserve in Blumenthal would be extended to the Schwaneweder Heide. Green belts and the Weser meadows would be kept free of further development.

The Greens want to improve urban air quality and are pushing at the federal level to turn low-emission zones into zero-emission zones. In the next legislative term, the technical and legal groundwork is to be laid. The platform points to the EU limits for nitrogen oxides and particulate matter as binding health protection.

City air should get cleaner. The Greens want zero-emission zones. These are areas where vehicles may not give off exhaust. Electric vehicles drive there. Companies should also give off fewer pollutants and smells.

The groundwork is to be laid in the coming legislative term so that residents can prepare over the long run. The Greens also want to identify further areas in the city of Bremen for such zones, for example residential neighborhoods. More enforcement officers are to check compliance with the Blue Sticker. Odor and pollutant emissions from manufacturing companies are to fall significantly, with solutions based on modern environmental technology worked out together with the companies.

The Greens want to make microchipping and registration mandatory for dogs and cats and introduce a competence certificate for dog owners. The Bremen animal shelter is to get secure funding, and the right of animal welfare groups to sue is to be widened. More pigeon lofts are planned for city pigeons.

Dogs and cats should get a chip. Owners then have to register their animals. People who keep a dog should take a test. The Bremen animal shelter should get steady money. Every district should have houses for pigeons.

For the competence certificate, the practical test would be taken anew with each individual dog. The right of animal welfare associations to sue is to cover animal experiments in the future and be open to national organizations not based in Bremen. The research center for animal welfare law at the University of Bremen is to get a professorship. Pigeon lofts are to be built in every district of the city of Bremen, where numbers can be managed by swapping eggs and which, in the platform's view, also reduce droppings. More off-leash areas for dogs are planned.

The Greens want to tighten hunting law: fewer species that may be hunted and a ban on driven hunts and trapping. A rescue station for wild animals is also to be set up in the state of Bremen. At the federal level too, they back a ban on wild animals in circuses.

The Greens want to protect wild animals better. Hunters should be allowed to hunt fewer kinds of animals. Some ways of hunting should be banned. Hurt wild animals should get help at a station. Circuses should no longer have wild animals.

The number of huntable species is to drop significantly. Where hunting is justified by species protection or other weighty reasons, scientific monitoring would have to prove its success. Hunting law is also to protect pets better. The rescue station would care for wild animals until they can be released, and is to be made possible in the coming legislative term. For circuses, the Greens favor alternative forms of performance to replace wild animal acts.

The Greens want to end animal experiments at research institutions in the state of Bremen and use every legal option to do so. The platform points above all to experiments on monkeys at the University of Bremen. They also want animal welfare strengthened at the federal level.

In Bremen, researchers do tests on animals. For example on monkeys at the university. The Greens want to end these tests. They want to use every law they can for this.

According to the platform, animals in the state of Bremen are still used as research subjects. The Greens announce that they will exhaust all legal means available to the state. In parallel, they want to push for stronger animal welfare at the federal level.

The Greens want to restructure the economy so that materials stay in circulation and less waste is produced. Bremen's organic waste is to be turned into biogas within the city, and more recycled materials are to be used in construction.

The Greens want less trash and less use of raw materials. Things should last longer and be used again. Organic waste should become biogas in Bremen. Building should use more recycled materials.

Before the current contracts expire, the Greens want to examine how site selection, technology and an operating model for a fermentation plant in Bremen can be prepared; so far the organic waste is hauled to Bohmte. Together with the resource center in Oldenburg, learning sites for repair and sharing are to be set up. The round table on resource efficiency for the construction industry is to continue. At the federal and EU levels, the Greens want to push for rules on plastic packaging, longer product lifespans and reusability. Projects following the “cradle to cradle” approach are to be launched with companies and research institutions.

The Greens consider the planned deepening of the outer Weser unnecessary and want to avoid it; they reject deepening the lower Weser. The platform cites the intended port cooperation with Wilhelmshaven and ecological concerns. For material dredged from rivers, they call for a joint strategy of the northern German states.

There are plans to make the Weser river deeper for big ships. The Greens want to avoid this. They say it harms nature and is not needed. They also want a shared plan for the mud dug out of rivers. The northern states should make this plan together.

According to the platform, cooperation with the Jade-Weser-Port in Wilhelmshaven, in which Bremen holds a stake, makes a deeper outer Weser unnecessary. If it happens anyway, it must not weaken water protection under the EU's water and marine directives. Together with the Green state parties of the other coastal states, the Greens call for a sediment strategy that takes the sea, the rivers and flood protection into account. A northern German summit led by the federal government is to lay the groundwork. In addition, the Havariekommando (maritime emergency command) should get more staff and funding to fight environmental disasters in the North Sea.