Workshop on adopting cities and municipalities to climate change
Enhancing the capacity to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change and supporting resilience to these changes is one of the most important elements of global, European, and Polish climate policy, as reflected not only in the European Green Deal but also in the programming of the new European Union Financial Perspective 2021-2027. In the new climate change adaptation strategy Building a climate resilient Europe, published on 24 February 2021, the European Commission points out that national, regional and local authorities should develop plans for adapting to climate change.
Kick-off meeting within the CommitClimate project
On February 1-2, 2023, the first meeting of partners within the CommitClimate project, was held in Riga. The aim of the project is, among others, to improve the competence of local government representatives in the area of energy transition and to develop a new simulation model for calculating carbon footprints and modeling scenarios for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the future.
Municipalities and cities are important drivers of decarbonizing energy systems. They are responsible for setting a strategic direction to increase energy efficiency, produce renewable energy, and reduce local greenhouse gas emissions. They are essential in mobilizing stakeholders and citizens to introduce energy solutions for climate neutrality. However, this potential is not yet well exploited due to a lack of skills and supportive tools.
First meeting with OwnYourSECAP municipalities
OwnYourSECAP project officially started! On January 17, 2023, the first meeting was held with Polish municipalities involved in the international project: OwnYourSECAP: Bringing local and regional municipalities towards owning their SECAPs.
During the meeting, the main objectives of the project were presented, and the project's methodology and new design approach were discussed, allowing all participating municipalities to exchange experiences, learn from each other and provide support to each other.
Participants were also introduced to the details of the "design thinking" method, which will be applied to the development of SECAP plans. A short training on this method will also be held soon to help understand the mechanism and how it can be implemented in practice.
Second El-Practice Newsletter
We kindly invite you to familiarize yourself with the second EL-Practice newsletter, concerning at practical trainings for sustainable energy consumption via personal behavioural changes. The last few months have been an intensive time, which resulted in visible progress in the work on the project implementation.
Activities on the finalizing of the first result (PR1) aimed at analyzing the needs of young adults related to energy education have been completed. A brief summary of countries performance can be found in this issue. Information is also provided on the modules and topics contained in the prepared training, on which work is carried out as part of another package of tasks (PR3).
Cities from 4 European countries will be Ready4NetZero!
Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Germany joined forces to support local authorities in Central Eastern European (CEE) and South-Eastern European (SEE) to develop, monitor and implement climate neutrality strategies, thus contributing to the EU targets set for 2050.
Since reaching climate neutrality by 2050 is a constant challenge for cities, the recently launched EUKI funded project Ready4NetZero focuses on building capacity, knowledge and skills among city officials, municipal staff and local stakeholders, fostering exchange and networking between municipalities that are in the process of developing long-term Energy and Climate strategies.