A referendum in Berlin on Sunday that forced the municipality to aim for climate neutrality by 2030 instead of 2045 failed, the city’s mayor, Franziska Giffi, said.

The measure would force the new conservative local government to invest heavily in renewable energy, building efficiency and public transportation. If it won enough votes, Berlin would be one of the few major European cities with a legally binding goal of becoming carbon neutral within the next seven years, Agerpres writes.

The result “shows that most Berliners also believe that the demands of the referendum could not have been implemented even if they had been enacted into law,” Giffy said.

Last year, the European Union launched a program to help 100 cities inside and outside the Union become climate neutral by 2030, but the program and the financial support it offers are not legally binding.

Quiz: Do Berliners Want More Ambitious Climate Policy?

The referendum was a test of whether Germans, or at least Berliners, want a more ambitious climate policy in Germany, which now aims to make Europe’s largest economy carbon-neutral by 2045.

Climate campaigners behind the vote said the government’s target was too far into the future to prevent global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. “At the moment, climate policy is simply not enough to ensure a future worth living in our city,” said Jessamine Davies of Climate New Start Berlin.

Unlike previous referendums held in Berlin, such as those demanding the expropriation of large landowners or the refusal to build the former Tempelhof airport, Sunday’s referendum would be legally binding on the Berlin government.

“Berlin lacks data to make this goal more achievable”

The referendum comes as the conservative CDU party negotiates a possible coalition with the Social Democrats in Berlin after its landslide victory in re-election that left the Greens in opposition.

The initiative needed at least 608,000 yes votes for the results to be binding, but as of 20:40 (18:40 GMT) just under 441,000 votes had been cast.

As a city of four million with few sources of renewable energy or geothermal heating, Berlin lacks the data to make this goal more achievable, said Bernd Hirschl of the Institute for Environmental Economics Research.

However, the referendum was a way to reinvigorate the debate on climate policy and the changes people need to make to achieve climate neutrality, regardless of the timeline, Hirschl told Reuters. “Because it is not about the year 2030. It’s about whether we want to send a signal to politicians,” he added.