Almada: on the way to becoming a low-carbon role model
Located on the south bank of the river Tagus, opposite Lisbon, Almada City Council is one of 18 municipalities within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, with 180,000 permanent residents living in an area of 72 km2. Despite being mostly urban, Almada still manages to preserve 25% of its territory as a natural protected area of great richness and biodiversity. The city’s Atlantic beachfront extends for approximately 13 km and is a popular leisure destination, attracting an estimated 8 million visitors per year.
Municipalities in southern Italy join forces with citizens to tackle climate change
Three municipalities in southern Italy – Palma Campania, San Giuseppe Vesuviano and Striano – are proving that local authorities can engage citizens meaningfully and make them key actors in the transition to a low carbon economy.
‘When something is good, take it to your own town hall!’
On the 17th and 18th of September 2020, 12 Spanish cities* met for the first edition of the mPower Regional Events. The encounter was framed around the question of how cities can take more ambitious leadership in a democratic and just energy transition. Punctuated by more in-depth energy transition stories from six of the cities participating, the event formed the beginnings of a dialogue around how to bring energy sovereignty to a city and its local stakeholders. What could the city officers learn from and with each other in the areas of energy efficiency in buildings, expansion of publicly owned renewables and citizen participation? We share some of the main insights from the event in this blog.
The just transition as a beautiful challenge for municipalities
What can European municipalities learn from each other to build a fair, clean and democratic energy transition? A lot, as our recent mPOWER event proved. On 29 and 30 November, 17 municipalities from all across Europe came together to celebrate the conclusion of the mPOWER Exchange programme. For more than a year, they had been learning together about how to take local leadership in creating a clean, fair and democratic energy system. This blog article recaps the highlights of the celebration event.
Empowering local communities through partnership in Meath
Community spirit has always been strong in Ireland; from pre-electrification days where farmers would help each other bring in the harvest to modern times where communities work together to create a cleaner, greener environment under such initiatives as ‘Tidy Towns’. Most recently, during Covid-19, this community spirit and willingness to help has drawn citizens together to support each other and protect the most vulnerable in society. Likewise, any energy transition and climate action must practise justice and inclusivity, to include everyone on this journey.
How Greater Manchester plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2038
The city-region of Greater Manchester is made up of ten local councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) and the Mayor. Known as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), it works together with other partners and local services on issues that affect everyone in the region, such as the environment, transport, regeneration, and attracting investment.
Tampere: engaging housing co-ops and residents in the drive towards carbon neutrality
Tampere has always pioneered sustainable technologies in Finland and is using this experience to drive forward an ambitious programme to become carbon-neutral by 2030. Due to the high levels of heating required in this cool region, the city engages a variety of stakeholders to renovate residential buildings to improve energy efficiency, among other actions. These measures are already bearing fruit and moving the city closer to achieving its goal.
Municipal actions for building energy democracy and energy sovereignty: Municipalist Manifesto from 2020 onwards
This blog introduces the 16 proposals put forward in the Municipalist Manifesto for building energy democracy and energy sovereignty locally, presented by the Catalan Network for Energy Sovereignty (Xse) and the Transnational Institute. The Municipalist Manifesto aims to be a tool that can be used as a guide by (municipalist) citizens platform, municipal councils and opposition parties, organisations and collectives, and any person who wishes to take action.
Market failures and public ownership options in the European municipal energy transition
There is a paradox at the heart of Europe’s ambition to achieve a municipal energy transition. On the one hand, there is recognition of the importance of municipal and community action to tackle climate change. It is widely recognised that the local level – the scale of everyday life – is a critical policy space for developing strategies for achieving an energy transition. From our work on the MPOWER project, however, it is evident that while municipalities are keen to set ambitious targets and goals, without supportive infrastructure and policies at national and European levels that are not driven by marketisation imperatives, they will struggle.
How Križevci’s residents created Croatia’s first crowdfunded solar power plant
The Croatian city of Križevci is becoming a national pioneer in the fight for clean energy and against energy poverty. Located not far from the capital Zagreb in central Croatia, the municipality is home to about 21,000 people, half of whom live in the city itself and half in the surrounding rural areas. Križevci is the first Croatian city to implement a crowdfunded renewable energy project, an endeavour that has made it a beacon in the country, with many others now looking at how to replicate the success story.