Authors: Joanna Trimble This year’s CIVITAS Forum showcased that cities are innovative test beds that drive continuous progress. As focal points for policy change and joint procurement, cities shape the markets of the future. As the EU looks at economic competitiveness, clean and efficient mobility will be critical, and cities can play an even larger role.   Economic competitiveness is the top priority of the EU’s next long-term budget from 2028. And this year’s CIVITAS Forum in Thessaloniki drew into spotlight the paramount role cities play in cultivating economic innovation and decarbonisation in [...]

Authors: Barbara Jarkiewicz, Deniz Celik Bulgurlu, and Joanna Trimble Cities are where climate ambitions hit the ground running. Their innovation and leadership translate climate targets into real emissions cuts across every municipal system – how it powers and moves, how it builds and consumes. More than 20 Turkish municipalities compared their climate implementation experience, and the conversation kept returning to one place: the biggest barriers are no longer a lack of plans, but the institutional machinery needed to deliver them.  They need effective governance, finance, sufficient capacity, reliable data and more to close the persistent gap between planning and delivery.  “This is the work NetZeroCities is built for: giving cities the support, resources and tools to reach climate neutrality, and making sure what [...]

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz Europe’s climate transition is unfolding in places most people know intimately: the apartment blocks where families start their mornings, the schools and offices that shape daily routines, the streets where old buildings tell the story of generations. These spaces also represent one of Europe’s biggest climate challenges.   Buildings account for around 40% of the EU’s energy consumption and more than a third of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, making the built environment one of the most important frontiers in the race towards climate neutrality.  For cities working towards the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, [...]

Author: Joanna Trimble In Denmark, Sønderborg is set to achieve a carbon-neutral energy system by 2029 – positioning the city as a green frontrunner in Europe. Its business-first mindset powers that success. Working alongside ten industries with the highest energy consumption, the municipality creates viable business cases, setting in motion the economic tipping points that propel the climate transition.  A small city with a grand vision   Nestled on the southern coast of Denmark, Sønderborg is a small waterfront city where history, innovation, and maritime culture converge. Despite a modest population of 74,000, its influence far exceeds its size. The city can punch above its weight thanks [...]

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz A decade ago, the energy transition seemed relatively straightforward. Replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, improve efficiency and emissions would fall. Cities now know it is far more complicated than that.  As climate neutrality moves from ambition to implementation, local governments are discovering that progress depends on far more than technology. Success now hinges on institutions, investment, public participation and the ability to align diverse stakeholders around a shared vision. Producing clean energy remains essential, but cities are also learning how to integrate it into the fabric of urban life through governance, finance and collective action.  That lesson is [...]

Author: Joanna Trimble Slovakia’s Košice – a European Capital of Culture – is an old city with fresh ambitions. Stirred to refashion energy governance, the city set out to establish dedicated energy teams, renovate municipal buildings, and tackle energy poverty – where heating, electricity, and hot water consume a large share of already stretched incomes. With some residents facing impossible trade-offs between energy, food, and rent, city leaders turned to local partners who broke new ground for Slovakia to tailor assistance to people’s needs.  “How much energy does the washing machine or the oven use?” asks Petra, a single mother of two living in Košice. Every day, energy bills are weighed against other needs, like paying rent and food for her family. “In the winter, we all sleep in one room under blankets, so I don't have to heat the whole apartment.”    Petra [...]

Author: Joanna Trimble Every sector faces the pressing need to outpace climate impacts for economic and environmental security. In France, Bordeaux Métropole teamed up with Bordeaux University to turn this challenge into an opportunity. By forging alliances across business, government, research, and civil society, they hope to build a foundation capable of catching cascading climate risks in their tracks.   “Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum.”   With this message at the World Economic Forum, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney urged that decades of prioritising efficiency over resilience [...]

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz Across the continent, cities know their climate plans far outstrip their budgets. Facilitated by NetZeroCities, many participating cities acknowledge that municipal coffers can typically cover only a fraction of what is needed to deliver climate neutrality, often closer to a fifth than to half once the full cost of transforming buildings, transport and energy systems is on the table.  That gap will not close through grants and city budgets alone. Cities understand that this demands new financial mechanisms and coalitions between public authorities, private investors, citizens and European institutions, and that is exactly what is starting to take shape. In the past two [...]

Author: Joanna Trimble The Swedish city of Lund is testing how high a city can soar by rethinking how it governs the climate transition. By pulling dozens of initiatives into a single portfolio, the city is charting a common path to accelerate the pace of change. Now, this city is set to forge an innovative and adaptive model for governance, pushing the boundaries on what people can achieve together and how to activate collective impact for the long term. Lund has made great strides towards decarbonisation, with emissions falling 45% compared to 2010. But the city needs to reach [...]