Anne-Charlotte Costabadie, Author at NetZeroCities

COP31: From targets to city streets

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-11-09T19:01:16+01:00November 9th, 2026|

COP31 puts climate implementation at the heart of global action, and cities are the last mile where climate ambitions hit the ground. As world leaders gather in Antalya, NetZeroCities brings evidence from Europe's Mission Cities of how climate ambitions are being translated into action on buildings, electrification and climate finance. Our message is clear: delivering on global climate commitments requires cities to be recognised and empowered as partners in shaping and implementing the transition.From global plenaries to local neighbourhoods, climate commitments must translate into tangible results for people and communities. Cities play a central role in transforming the systems that [...]

Cities have solutions, but why don’t they scale up? Five misconceptions about scaling and how to overcome them

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-11-04T09:50:44+01:00October 29th, 2026|

Innovation isn’t scarce in cities, but what they do lack is time and energy dedicated to helping it flourish, argue Amelia Kuch and Joshua Stehr from NetZeroCities’ partners Dark Matter Labs. Based on a conversation with Anette Olovborn, an expert who has worked for more than ten years with innovation and change in municipalities and city networks, they unpack the persistent misconceptions about scaling that shape policy design, funding, and governance, and suggest how cities can change this approach. Across Europe, cities continue to test innovative climate solutions like low-traffic zones retrofitting public buildings, reforming school [...]

Podcast – Better neighbourhoods via better transport? Climate action in Oslo and Limassol

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-10-20T16:38:40+02:00October 20th, 2026|

Host: Sean Errey | Produced by NetZeroCities Episode summary How do you move around your city? And what would it take for that choice to be easier, greener, and better for everyone? In this episode of Path to Zero: City Stories, host Sean Errey explores one of the biggest levers in urban climate action: mobility. Featuring the Mayor of Limassol, Cyprus, and a climate expert from Oslo, the episode shows that rethinking how people move through cities isn’t just a transport challenge – it’s a story of identity, public space, urban density, local economies, and the long-term shape of a city itself. Limassol [...]

CIVITAS Forum 2026

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-09-14T13:53:04+02:00September 7th, 2026|

NetZeroCities is heading to this year’s CIVITAS Forum, Roots & Routes: Moving Forward to Competitive, Connected and Resilient Urban Mobility. Visit our booth at the EU Initiatives thematic corner on 15–16 September, where our mobility experts will be on hand to talk through what a mobility transition looks like in practice – how cities can shift away from car dependency, accelerate clean and electric transport, motivate behaviour change, and use governance, policy and data to connect mobility with wider climate and urban-development goals. Based on our expertise guiding 112 Mission Cities across Europe to build and act on their climate strategies, we’ll be sharing the tools, funding routes and peer-learning opportunities available through NetZeroCities, as [...]

The Invisible Engine Powering Europe’s Climate Transition

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-09-09T10:27:30+02:00August 31st, 2026|

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz Every day, cities generate extraordinary amounts of information. Buildings consume energy. Buses move through neighbourhoods. Heat networks respond to changing demand. For years, much of this information existed in separate systems, making it difficult to understand how one decision affected another. Today, cities are beginning to connect those pieces through an invisible tissue of digitalisation. Digital technologies are helping cities reveal hidden patterns, model and test pathways before investment, and monitor whether their climate strategies are effective. “Climate change doesn't respect sectoral boundaries. Heating decisions shift electricity demand, renovation [...]

Expert Support to Facilitate the Community of Practice of Cities in Norway

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-08-10T15:31:18+02:00July 29th, 2026|

Deadline: 24 August 2026 (23:59 CEST Time) Background NetZeroCities through Special Grant Agreement 2 ( Task 1.6, ‘Sub European Peer to Peer Collaboration’, is actively working to provide tailored support in various national contexts. The aim is to provide additional support to cities, foster communities of practice between cities in each country, i.e. to strengthen city to city collaboration spaces at national level and thus help to reinforce national platforms. To achieve this, NetZeroCities has developed a country specific support framework tailored to the unique characteristics and needs of each context. Three Norwegian cities, Oslo, Trondheim, and Stavanger are part [...]

Expert Support to Facilitate the National Platform for Climate Neutral Cities in Türkiye

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-08-27T09:53:29+02:00July 29th, 2026|

New Deadline: 26 August 2026 (23:59 CEST Time) Please note that the deadline for submitting bids has changed and a list of questions and answers are published at the bottom of the RfP in the downloaded PDF file. Background NetZeroCities, through Special Grant Agreement 2 (SGA2) Task 1.6, ‘Sub-European Peer-to-Peer Collaboration’, is actively working to provide tailored support in various national contexts. The aim is to provide additional support to cities, foster communities of practice between cities in each country, i.e. to strengthen city-to-city collaboration spaces at national level and thus help to reinforce national support structures for climate neutral [...]

‘If it’s not economically competitive, we have lost the game’

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-07-30T16:36:13+02:00July 27th, 2026|

Kozani is part of “a region in transition,” says the Greek city’s climate lead, as it plans for a future without the mining industry that until recently sustained it. Showing citizens the value of clean energy to their finances, as well as to the climate, is crucial – and finance experts from NetZeroCities’ Capital Hub are working closely with the city on the numbers. Michail Kastanaras is “quite new to the struggle” that Kozani began a few years ago, he says, but he and his colleagues are now playing a special role within the local climate [...]

Capacity Building and Climate Transition Finance Portfolio Development for the Cities of The Hague and Eindhoven

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-07-29T14:31:19+02:00July 17th, 2026|

New deadline: 24 August 2026 (23:59 CEST Time) Background The Hague and Eindhoven are actively engaged in the EU Mission for 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030. As part of their Climate City Contract through which they have received their respective mission labels, they have created a climate action plan setting out key investment needs. To achieve climate neutrality and prepare the respective cities for the impacts of climate change, large-scale investments are needed, both in public and private assets: Public infrastructure, public spaces, utilities, public and private buildings. Whilst some of these investments can take place on the basis of [...]

Strategies to make innovation stick in cities

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2026-07-03T10:15:11+02:00July 3rd, 2026|

In this second blog on city innovation, NetZeroCities partners TNO show how cities – after identifying their challenges, outlined in part one – can follow five strategies to make innovation not a ‘nice to have’ but an inevitable part of their results. In our first blog, we described 15 recurring challenges that quietly stall innovation in cities, showing up as slow progress, unfinished pilots, fragile initiatives, and innovation that depends on personal energy rather than organisational support. But naming challenges is only half the battle. In our work on addressing complex societal challenges with public organisations [...]

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