Matthias Ratheiser

The way we build our cities can have a profound impact on citizens’ lives—and that includes how hot or cold neighborhoods feel, an increasingly important concern with climate change. Enter WeatherPark, a research firm that focuses on urban climatology. Under Matthias Ratheiser’s leadership as co-chief executive officer, the firm helps analyze construction projects and city planning for things such as how buildings will impact the flow of wind and fresh air. WeatherPark has advised on everything from a housing complex in Hamburg to the urban district around Vienna’s new central rail station. This June, Frankfurt approved a new skyscraper development plan that includes climate analysis Ratheiser helped work on.

What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government (other than your own), needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?

As a realist, I don’t believe that we, as a global community, will be able to effectively reduce CO2 emissions next year or in the near future. Therefore, the most important actions next year and in the years to come are those that help us adapt to the negative consequences of the changing climate. Therefore, for me, it is not a single action that advances us in the agenda, but the sum of the adaptation measures taken by all affected cities and countries.

What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year, and why?

Next year, in addition to our entrepreneurial efforts to help cities like Hamburg, Vienna, or Frankfurt adapt to the climate crisis, I will be volunteering to help combat disinformation. I will also be giving lectures and teaching at a university in Salzburg.

Where should climate activism go in the next year?

I believe the most important activity in the coming years is to convince decision-makers and politicians that we are already in the midst of a global climate catastrophe, and that urgent adaptation is needed. Conspiracy theories and disinformation are the greatest enemies of a collective effort.