Spotlight Series Archives

Mission-driven policy innovation: accelerating cities’ journeys to climate neutrality

Ella Morgan2025-08-18T14:06:45+02:00August 18th, 2025|

Written by Lilybell Evergreen, Alan MacKenzie, and Georgia Cameron On the road to reach climate neutrality, cities across Europe are confronting a well-established obstacle when it comes to making policy: traditional approaches often fall short when tackling the complex, interconnected challenges of climate action. The tight links to other complex topics like industrial policy or energy security multiply the difficulties of action and, too often, cities spend their time managing symptoms, rather than getting to the underlying problems that they see. But within the EU Cities Mission, where more than 100 Mission Cities are striving to [...]

How much does it cost to reach climate neutrality?

Ella Morgan2025-07-31T16:14:44+02:00July 31st, 2025|

Written by Bankers without Boundaries and Alan MacKenzie Mission Cities have ambitious plans to become climate neutral – but the means of financing them will have to be just as innovative and bold. Experts from NetZeroCities’ partner Bankers without Boundaries have crunched the numbers and set out the challenges for Mission Cities in a recent paper. We must fully grasp the magnitude of the investment required for cities to deliver their climate neutrality plans – because without that clarity, they risk falling short. The estimated €307bn (or €5,486 per person) needed across [...]

Transition teams: Spotlight on the crews steering cities to climate neutrality

Anne-Charlotte Costabadie2025-07-11T18:44:49+02:00July 11th, 2025|

Written by Lilybell Evergreen, Bhuvana Sekar, and Alan MacKenzie As cities across Europe pursue climate neutrality as part of the EU Cities Mission, their efforts to innovate, collaborate, and learn are being organised in very different ways. But what do these efforts have in common that other cities can learn from and replicate? Each of the Mission’s 112 cities has its own story – its own structures, goals, challenges, and opportunities – but another view of this diversity is offered by looking at the people closest to the cities and how they work with others to [...]

Slovenia, Steering Towards a Net Zero Horizon

Ella Morgan2024-10-15T10:16:46+02:00October 4th, 2024|

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz Stories from Pilot Cities: the Slovenian cities of Ljubljana, Kranj and Velenje are part of the 112 cities participating in the EU Mission to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities and the Pilot Cities Programme – a component of the Mission that focuses on exploring and testing pathways to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year period. Ljubljana, Kranj and Velenje are gearing up to pave the way to climate neutrality through innovative, systemic approaches. The three ambitious Slovenian cities have partnered under the Pilot Cities Programme to develop and test new solutions to their [...]

Galway’s Westside Gains Ground for Net Zero Goals

Ella Morgan2025-02-10T14:18:27+01:00August 12th, 2024|

Author: Elisa Abrantes Stories from Pilot Cities: Galway is a participant in the Pilot Cities Programme, an EU grant funded programme which focuses on exploring and testing pathways to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year period. “The climate neutrality targets of 2030 and 2050 are closing in on us,” says Sharon Carroll, as she reflects on the formidable challenge ahead. “The level of action that’s needed is almost a barrier in itself because it can be so overwhelming,” says Carroll. Galway, where Carroll is the Project Coordinator for the Irish city’s participation in the NetZeroCities Pilot [...]

Istanbul’s quest for earthquake resilience and sustainability

Ella Morgan2024-09-02T14:08:20+02:00August 8th, 2024|

Author: Barbara Jarkiewicz Stories from Pilot Cities: Istanbul is one of the 112 cities participating in the EU Mission to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities and the Pilot Cities Programme – a component of the Mission that focuses on exploring and testing pathways to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year period. The last major earthquake in Turkey was nearly eight magnitude, causing massive damage to millions of buildings and resulting in thousands of lives lost. The country suffers regular smaller tremors too and therefore the historic city of Istanbul, the country’s largest city, faces a dual [...]

Capital idea: How the Climate City Capital Hub aims to make the difference for cities’ climate neutrality goals

Clea Prieto2024-07-19T10:55:13+02:00July 15th, 2024|

“All in all, it often comes to the money questions like, ‘how do we fund our climate work?’” says Elina Ojala, the environmental director of Lahti, Finland. “And there we also need private investors, and we need to find out how we can make it all happen and have all the things financed that we have planned.” Like 32 other cities in the EU Cities Mission, Lahti has now been awarded a ‘Mission Label’ – formal recognition of their plans to reach climate neutrality, detailed in their Climate City Contract and submitted to the European Commission. But what comes next? The [...]

Preserving the Past, Building the Future: Budapest’s Climate Challenge

Ella Morgan2024-07-16T15:58:00+02:00July 12th, 2024|

Author: Elisa Abrantes Stories from Pilot Cities: Budapest is one of the 112 cities participating in the EU Mission to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities and the Pilot Cities Programme – a component of the Mission that focuses on exploring and testing pathways to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year period. As a European crossroads of culture and a historical intersection of power, Budapest’s streets, food, ruin bars, historical monuments, castles, bridges and spas tell the story of Roman, Ottoman Turkish, Slavic, Jewish and Viennese influence. They have left their stamp on the city, the ‘Pearl [...]

Banking on Bristol

Ella Morgan2025-04-16T09:47:44+02:00July 12th, 2024|

Author: Elisa Abrantes Stories from Pilot Cities: Bristol is one of the 112 cities participating in the EU Mission to deliver 100 climate-neutral and smart cities and the Pilot Cities Programme – a component of the Mission that focuses on exploring and testing pathways to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year period. “Who is going to pay for this?” The estimated cost of Bristol’s decarbonisation is around £8 billion. Therefore, to Bristol City Council, it is clear that finding the money is imperative. Situated in the southwest of England, the city is taking bold steps towards answering [...]

Grassroots, new routes? Citizens and stakeholders take the lead on climate neutrality in Parma, Lyon, Guimarães, and Bristol

Ella Morgan2024-06-07T12:21:24+02:00June 7th, 2024|

Author: Alan MacKenzie The difficulties of building a broad and active civic network are not hard to imagine – competing interests, clashing personalities, and conflicting visions are just a few that might come to mind. And engaging them in local climate action is arguably another level altogether. But many cities in the EU Cities Mission are embracing the challenge, recognising that a wide range of actors improves not only the legitimacy of any climate plan but its effectiveness too. After all, who holds more expertise on peoples’ abilities and needs than those people themselves? Four cities [...]

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