Abstract
Cities are responsible for 65% of energy consumption and for the 70% of CO2 emissions. Incisive actions are fundamental to bring cities towards climate neutrality by 2050 working by and for the citizens. For this reason, the “100 climate-neutral cities Mission” anticipates the target of climate neutrality by 2030. The objective of this paper, developed within the H2020 GRETA project—GReen Energy Transition Actions (GA101022317), is to investigate energy communities and climate city contracts as key interventions to face the ambitious goal of implementing citizens-centered and climate-neutral cities. To achieve this objective, this paper is structured as follows: (1) an updated framework of European and Italian legislation concerning energy communities; (2) an overview of climate city contracts’ definition and key aspects; (3) a selection and analysis of energy communities’ case studies; (4) a description of already developed pilot climate city contracts. The results provide more advanced knowledge about EU energy communities strategies and about the possible contractual agreements that can guarantee commitment between parties and can allow the active participation of citizens in the energy system. The lessons learned contribute to the application in the GRETA Italian case study, whose first participation activities are also described in the paper.
Highlights
Based on the assumption that climate change and environmental crisis represent a huge threat worldwide, the European Union has set a series of energy targets that all Member States and local authorities are required to respect: the European Green Deal defines the general objective of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030 and of achieving climate neutrality, with zero emissions of CO2, by 2050 [1]
The concept of social contract applied to the clean transition and the transformation to sustainability implies the need for a fundamental realignment of societies, which, in turn, requires the legitimation of their citizens
This paper aims at jointly investigating energy communities and climate/energy/social contracts as key factors to achieve the goal of implementing citizens-centered and climateneutral cities
Summary
Based on the assumption that climate change and environmental crisis represent a huge threat worldwide, the European Union has set a series of energy targets that all Member States and local authorities are required to respect: the European Green Deal defines the general objective of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030 and of achieving climate neutrality, with zero emissions of CO2, by 2050 [1]. The 100 ClimateNeutral cities mission aims to select, support and promote 100 valid examples of the EU cities that have the ambition to become climate neutral by 2030, with the objective to make them pilot innovation hubs and references for all the cities. This ambitious goal cannot be achieved without an ecological and cultural transformation, involving all interested stakeholders from public administrations, businesses, researchers and citizens [5]. During the conference “Conversations on the New European Bauhaus” on 22 April 2021, Ursula von der Leyen stressed that the transition to a climate-neutral Europe is synonymous with cultural transformation, since, in order to be reached, it must primarily be understood, discussed and shared with people [6]
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