Making Your City Smart & Climate-Neutral For 2030
As part of the ongoing efforts to drive forward new climate-neutral initiatives, the European Commission has launched an informational kit for smart communities that wish to take part in the “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” mission. The info kit contains practical recommendations for city preparations, as well as a short guide to urban climate neutrality and strategies towards this goal.
Applications are open for urban communities until 31st January 2022, with the selected cities to be announced by April 2022. It is an ambitious project with €359.3 available in funding until 2023, and which aims to achieve 100 climate-neutral and smart European cities by 2030 and to ensure that these cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050.
So, we know that qualifying cities will set an example for others to follow across Europe by 2050; but does this mean, however, that cities that fail to qualify shouldn’t also start working towards these same goals ahead of 2030?
The short answer is no, and there are many strong reasons for it.
As City Manager for Alba Iulia, I worked on securing projects through both public and private funding that gave the city a head start on its Smart City and resilience goals over 15 years ago - meaning that the city is already on course to deliver its objectives towards the European Green Deal, with much more ease than cities waiting to come across the right project further down the line. Urban planners should not only be looking for opportunities, but creating these for their municipalities along with what’s already available.
Cities already have a pivotal role in achieving climate neutrality by 2050 - the key goal of the European Green Deal. They take up only 4% of the EU’s land area, but they are home to 75% of the EU’s entire population. Furthermore, cities consume over 65% of the world’s energy and account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions.
With that in mind, and along with current and wider efforts being made throughout Europe to curb carbon emissions, the Commission’s kit provides a great reading guide for any city looking to become smart, resilient, and further step up its efforts towards carbon neutrality. And commencing these efforts should not wait until 2030.
