Characterised by its proximity to two rivers, the Rhine and the Neckar, as well as its heavy industry, the City of Mannheim in south-western Germany faces an urgent climate challenge. The city has committed to becoming climate neutral by 2050.
The small Irish city of Cork has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030, compared to the baseline of 2016, and aims for net-zero emissions by 2050. In the diverse business centre, some of the world’s largest tech companies meet a significant agricultural industry producing meat and dairy.
This report explores the state of energy transition within Europe’s municipalities, drawing on existing academic and non-academic literature, and primary data collection carried out as part of the mPOWER project.
Four cities explored the possibilities for large scale renewables generation. Visits to Frankfurt and Barcelona accelerated learning on how to: create a step change in solar generation uptake in the private sector, deliver large scale solar projects on city owned land and roofs and tackle energy poverty.
It is estimated that cities are responsible for 70% of global CO2 emissions. Thus, they have a large responsibility to react to the climate crisis by adapting their energy systems. Where do European municipalities stand with regards to the energy transition? What are the difficulties they face? This study sets out to answer these questions by surveying 27 diverse cities―from Mizil, Romania to Barcelona, Spain―that participated in the mPower Exchange project. This study them draws conclusions, assessing what has to be done in order to enable a democratic energy transition.
mPOWER is run by a consortium of Glasgow University (UK), Platform (UK), Energy Cities (EU-wide), IPE (Croatia), Transnational Institute (Netherlands), University of the Basque Country, and Carbon Coop (UK).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 785171. This project follows the EU data protection & security law, which is enforceable since 25 May 2018.
