An international conference entitled „Polish cities and villages for the climate” was organised by the Association of Municipalities Polish Network “Energie Cités” (PNEC) on 17th and 18th of June 2010 at the Royal Castle in Niepołomice. It received the patronage of Stanisław Kracik, the Voivode of Małopolska Region. Nearly 100 participants took part in the conference, including representatives of Polish and Ukrainian municipalities and delegates of the Ministry of the Environment, the Energy Regulatory Office, the Embassy of Denmark and the Covenant of Mayors Office.
At the beginning of the conference a letter from Andrzej Kraszewski, Minister of the Environment, was read. In the letter Minister thanked PNEC for its contribution to the „Partnership for Climate” initiative and congratulated all players of the Polish RES Champions League on their achievements, wishing them persistence in realization of future energy-related activities.
The first day of the conference was devoted to the „RES Champions League” project, coordinated in Poland by PNEC and co-financed from the IEE programme. Iwona Korohoda, project coordinator, had a presentation on Polish RES Champions League – its idea, goals, rules and results. Then, best “players” of the league presented their achievements in the field of RES use. At first participants of the conference learned about activities carried out by two winners of the European RES CL: Nowa Dęba, who received golden medal in the category of small cities, and Częstochowa, who received brown medal in the category of big cities. Then, representatives of other villages, towns and cities, who scored high in the Polish league, presented their experiences and investments in the field of solar energy and biomass use. These were: Szczawnica, Ełk, Myczkowce and Słupsk.
Two last presentations of the first day of the conference concerned energy efficient lightning and environmental criteria in green public procurement.
In the evening participants of the conference could admire beautiful illumination of the Royal Castle in Niepołomice made by LBL company, partner of Philips Lightning Poland.
The second day of the conference was devoted to the Covenant of Mayors initiative and to financing environmental investments. Four first Polish signatories of the Covenant – Bielsko-Biała, Łubianka, Niepołomice and Warszawa – presented their experiences with fulfilling the initiative’s requirements, especially with the development and implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans. Participants also found very interesting presentation made by Wojciech Piskorski from Carbon Engineering who spoke of Joint Implementation Projects and EU Emission Trading Scheme.
All participants of the conference received free copies of following guidebooks: “Energy management in municipal buildings”, “Municipal energy planning”, “European funds for renewable energy”, as well as the CD entitled “Energy management: turn your city into a model city!”.
