Elon Musk buying Twitter, or as he calls it, the “facto public town square”, has been one of the biggest news stories of the last week. After forking out around $44bn, he has promised to make online speech freer, which is no small thing.

Now, while media stories are focusing on other topics that derive from this piece of news, such as how much Musk will change the status quo of social media with his acquisition, there’s another point of view I’d like to put into the spotlight: how this promise of regulation of online free speech and Twitter use can impact the life of big cities.

Amongst the many initiatives from the European Union to fight climate change and achieve net-zero by 2050, one that has been gaining traction for industries with high carbon emissions is the possibility to buy carbon credits, in order to contribute to carbon offsetting.

Since 2005, energy-heavy industries have been subject to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), which sets a price for emissions in order to promote the transition to a carbon-neutral industry. In essence, what carbon offsetting does is reduce or remove carbon by compensating for emissions made elsewhere - and start-ups based in European cities are leading the charge on this.

The European Commission recently announced an update to the Industrial Emissions Directive as part of the European Green Deal. The Directive includes a set of rules that will cover more effective permits for installations, supporting the industry’s circular economy investments, and synergies between depollution and decarbonisation, while putting innovation stage-centre by offering support to EU frontrunners. It’s stipulated that Member States have 18 months to transform these rules into national legislation - a challenging race against the clock.

So what role do cities play in this reworked Directive? My thoughts, in this week’s blog for Europe of Cities.

Intercity connectivity is a major initiative with the potential to change the game plan for socioeconomic development across the globe. Within the larger context of globalisation, intra and interregional cooperation are key factors and, in this context, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has a huge opportunity to become an accelerator for worldwide development. But what exactly is the BRI, and what are the challenges ahead in today’s complex political climate?

Earlier this week, Tomorrow City published an article on the polluting impact of urbanisation, and what Smart Cities can do to limit this. The article points to some uncomfortable truths, such as the fact that human-made materials, including concrete, bricks or plastic, exceeded the mass of all living things on the planet in 2020. And that’s before we even talk about the energy utilised to create these materials, or the environmental impact of widespread urban developments and how they affect both human health and surrounding biodiversity.

As we edge closer to our collective environmental goals for 2030 and 2050, and with growing numbers of the human population migrating to cities - what can we do, from the perspective of Smart Cities, to limit the impact of urbanisation?

The talk of circular economy has become a hot topic in recent years, aided by it being one of the key proponents in order to help achieve net-zero goals around the world. But there are key challenges in fully understanding what this means, and how steps taken to implement it are troubled by factors that simply replace existing issues, as opposed to fully solving them - so what can we do to adequately address our sustainability goals, and ensure that we have a robust way to go about it?

70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. With that in mind, at the top of the world’s green agenda lies the creation of resilient and sustainable communities for citizens, with rising urbanisation being both a challenge and an opportunity to get things right. One of the UN’s Global Goals is the reduction of the adverse effects of natural disasters, as well as ensuring access to green spaces. So which initiatives around the world can we look towards for inspiration? Here are my top five.

As the world expands its focus on creating sustainable and green living solutions, the timing of initiatives that look to promote environmentally-conscious business models in Romania and throughout the continent must be applauded. After all, we live in an era where 49% of global investors refuse to finance companies that lack sustainable initiatives - and that number is only set to increase over the coming years. However, we must also ensure that these initiatives don’t give way to so-called greenwashing.

In January, Grenoble became the official European Green Capital for 2022, after adopting a Climate Plan to strengthen its sustainable transition. Indeed, the city’s efforts and actions read like a case study of best practices towards a greener urban future. So what lessons can city planners learn from Grenoble?

As sustainability becomes an important pillar of urban planning, especially in the structures of smart cities, the European Commission’s public consultation on organic, biodegradable and compostable plastics will become a vehicle towards putting into place a new series of recommendations for city officials. I’m confident that if this eco-friendly segment of the plastic market is given the tools to not just grow, but also be made more widely available to European investors, it has genuine potential to help in the fight against climate change. These materials can reduce pollution throughout cities, keep the air cleaner and better preserve the urban ecosystem. But for that to be put into a fully functional system, it needs a simplified process of information, production, and distribution throughout the continent.

Romania as a country has seen its education system hit hard by the pandemic, presenting a major challenge for both teachers and students who, overnight, needed to adapt to a fully online system, and later a hybrid one, which failed to provide much needed stability. Studies have shown how students have been heavily impacted by this, as well as the teaching staff, who had to embrace a new way of teaching, often lacking the appropriate tools and a solid system to do so. In this week’s blog for Europe of Cities, I take a look at how the European Commission’s Recovery and Resilience plan, and its focus on strengthening education systems in 2022 and beyond, can provide a much needed boost, as well as lending the tools to provide a much more robust structure that can withstand future challenges.

The New European Bauhaus aims to create within its hub a series of events and workshops that focus on urban regeneration, and how to revitalize different spaces through creative industries. So now, the world meets data, data meets community and community meets creative solutions. A lot of the representatives of these creative industries view smart solutions as part of their craft; so it’s only obvious how their contribution at the urban planning table can be of great value

Unless we find a better balance and connection between urban efforts and ensuring a healthy natural environment, no matter how much innovation we bring into our smart cities, we will not be able to thrive if, on the other hand, we’re left with soon-to-be wastelands as the environment that provides our natural resources.

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.

Representatives from all EU countries have agreed for the European Commission to be the sole enforcer of new tech rules and regulations, limiting the role of national antitrust watchdogs which had been sought. The DMA (Digital Markets Act), proposed by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager last year, aims to curb the powers of the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, in a bid to make the European tech market more competitive and allow better opportunities for new companies.

While much of the conversation surrounding COP26 has focused on coal, it is important to also remember that methane emissions, in particular, are responsible for as much as a quarter of current global warming. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted the danger of methane emissions in this respect, while the UNEP’s Executive Director, Inger Andersen, stressed the importance of strong actions in this field along with actions to decarbonise the energy system if we are to limit warming to 1.5C, and truly achieve the goals set for 2030 (slashing emissions by 30%) and 2050 (net zero).

Along with the ongoing expansion of smart communities throughout the world, every year we see more and more shining examples of sustainable urban living popping up. Northern Europe continues to buck the trend with many inspiring case studies, as was shown in recent research conducted by Disruptive Technologies which measured a number of factors when it comes to smart cities. These examples also lead the way in how to tackle Europe’s targets for limiting the impact of climate change.

The expansion of renewables is not a new subject on the EU’s agenda, yet it has recently come back into heightened focus as Europe is now facing a major increase in gas and electricity prices, much more pronounced than in previous years. Consumers with below average incomes become vulnerable as a result, and what is meant to be an accessible commodity of modern life to power and acclimatise our homes is becoming increasingly unaffordable to many

In the architecture of current and future Smart Cities, businesses have the opportunity to play a crucial role. What each of them can bring to the table at a local level, can also bring further value to the wider ecosystem of a smart city

The European Commission recently launched five missions that put major challenges for European citizens into focus. Perhaps the most exciting element of this is that these missions connect communities with their residents in a way that hasn’t been seen before, engaging them as a key part of the transformation into a better, brighter Europe, while also making citizens fully aware of their roles within their urban ecosystems