Valencia hosts 2024 Mission Cities Conference on climate-neutral innovations and collaboration

On 25-26 June 2024, the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission Conference gathered political representatives and practitioners from the 112 Mission Cities in Valencia to celebrate the Mission’s progress, share valuable insights and experiences, and inspiration.

In addition to stakeholders from the cities themselves, the Mission Platform managed by NetZeroCities, high-level representatives from EU institutions, and a wide range of stakeholders from regional and national authorities, the financial community and the private sector joined sessions and workshops addressing key challenges in parallel to the practical aspects and the collaborative strategies to effectively implement Climate City Contracts. 

After an inspiring welcome by Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General at DG Environment and Mission Manager of the 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, and María José Catalá, Mayor of the city of Valencia, the opening session brought together city leaders to highlight the crucial role of cities in delivering the European Green Deal and the support of the Mission in this regard. The cities of Reykjavik, Porto, Stavanger, and Barcelona, represented by their Deputy Mayors and Mission coordinators, underlined the responsibilities of cities as main attractors of human flows, from inhabitants to consumers and businesses. The challenges related to waste management, energy greening, and reduction of housing and research impacts on the environment were presented as great lessons from respective speakers. Through collaboration across various governance levels and international locations, as well as between local departments, better financing models and innovative solutions can greatly contribute to the Climate City Contracts’ process and implementation.

Parallel workshops enabling peer-learning also took place. One such one focused on urban mobility as one of the main sectors impacting local environments. The session highlighted collective harvesting after insightful stories from Mission Cities, Milan and Sofia, focusing on main challenges and key actions. Discussions were framed around five critical perspectives: 'Policy & Governance', 'Finance & Funding', 'Learning & Capability', 'Democracy & Participation' and 'Technology & Infrastructure'. Milan shared solutions to reduce private motorised vehicle use, based on on-demand transport for suburban areas, combined with Low Emission Zones (LEZ) and Limited Traffic Zones (LTZ). They identified barriers in technology, legislation and governance. Meanwhile, Sofia focuses on congestion caused by cars searching for parking. They have the necessary technology but seek better strategies to leverage it and meet their comprehensive policy objectives.

Parallel sessions supported participants with key learnings from cities on policy-related challenges, finance and governance instruments, and the Climate City Contract (CCC) drafting process. In the session about Climate City Contracts as 'Instruments of Governance & Facilitating Access to Finance', Kozani, Pécs, Aachen and Espoo shared their insights on bureaucracy management, capacity building, cooperation opportunities and governance structures. Aachen reminded that the Mission opportunities also come with challenges, responsibilities, processes and costs, which must be anticipated, especially for our shared goals in 2030. Prioritising measures can help in the financing decisions, and a good balance is needed between stable structures and agility in order to efficiently implement processes while growing local expertise. Espoo created subgroups among their CCC partners to distribute responsibilities and increase stakeholders’ ownership of the objectives. Pécs set up an urban capital fund to support climate change adaptations and used the CCC opportunity to create new jobs and perspectives for their youth, as a university town. Kozani encouraged to exploit the Horizon Europe Programme and the Just Transition Fund to better achieve the climate neutral transition at local level.

Day two focused firstly on political challenges with a session gathering the mayors of Leuven, Tallinn and Heidelberg with the Deputy mayor of Sofia, and the Director of the Region of Arnhem-Nijmegen. This was followed by a session focused on the Climate Cities Capital Hub. This Hub aims to bring private and public capital together in a neutral platform to ensure the maximum amount of projects get finalised. After that, the morning finished with a panel on multi-level governance gathering speakers from the national Ministry of Investments and European Projects of Romania, the cities of Turku and Vitoria Gasteiz, Cities Networks and the European Commission. 

The last afternoon of the event consisted of parallel sessions with concrete topics such as waste management, national platforms’ support, heating and cooling, and bilateral collaborations. A closing plenary and an evening reception supported the identification of key takeaways and the strengthening of ties between the participants.

Overall, the key words of these gatherings always remain “sharing is caring”, which means bonding, connecting, learning from others, and pushing each others towards more climate-neutrality, inclusive solutions and smart innovations.

Author: Manon Coyne 

Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the European Commission.