Capacity Building for Ambitious Long-Term Strategies

Most of the V4+2 Member are struggling with the concept of fully decarbonising their economy as it is perceived as increasing economic and social cost. This has led to resistance against the EU’s vision of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. However, the achievement of the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement requires the implementation of decarbonisation in Visegrad 4+2. While the debate around decarbonisation mostly focuses on the energy sector, it is also crucial to highlight the decarbonisation of other sectors (industry, agriculture or transport).

All in all, there is a need for inclusive and comprehensive transition visions and narratives that highlight the co-benefits of climate-neutral transition for the society to foster this development and build broad societal support for the zero-emissions transition. A narrative putting forward these positive co-benefits needs to be developed in each country by national actors that are best placed to analyse the national circumstances.

The project focussed on a multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral exchange on positive outcomes of the ambitious long-term climate strategies. This exchange offered a starting point for debate in other countries, and also in the region as a whole, thereby creating synergies and showing new opportunities for developing strategies for the transformation towards zero-carbon economies and societies. 

The project envisaged a three-step theory of change to increase the capacity of CSOs to operate within the national context. First, it encouraged CSOs to engage more effectively with long-term strategy processes, second it aimed to improve the consistency of national LTS with EU LTS and the Paris Agreement, and third it wanted to foster exchange with other stakeholders on the topic. The three core countries targeted by the project will be Poland, Czechia and Hungary.

• A better connection to Brussels: More than 130 climate and energy experts from Central and Eastern Europe intensified their dialogue with key players in Brussels, in particular with the European Commission, the European Parliament, business and municipal associations and trade unions, as part of two virtual study visits and channelled their knowledge on the energy transition, climate action and financing into EU decision-making processes.
• Exchange strengthens climate dialogue: Workshops, meetings and webinars in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary and three regional forums in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia improved cooperation between various climate organisations. They exchanged views more intensively on the development and implementation of climate and energy policies, the effective use of EU funds for more climate action, and just transition processes. 
• Input for optimising national long-term strategies: Methodologies for evaluating national long-term strategies were developed for the first time for Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, Spain and Slovenia. This made it easier for the national climate experts to consider suggestions for improvement and incorporate them into the long-term strategies before they are officially assessed by the European Commission.