First Webinar on a Possible Way to Self-Sufficiency and Climate Neutrality

Eager to debate the challenges that European municipalities are facing in their paths towards climate-neutral cities, participants engaged in dialogue with the guest speaker, Helmut Muthig, a certified physicist and Managing Director of an MBDA company, known for his expertise in dealing with Climate Changes and Energy Transition.

Rebecca Noebel from the Ecologic Institute, Germany, talked about capacity building for long-term climate neutrality strategies in towns and cities and presented the key challenges: limited staff capacity and resources, knowledge gaps, lack of technical expertise or sufficiency governance frameworks, limited access to context-specific facts, case studies, relevant tools or exchange opportunities.

A long-term approach was presented by Helmut Muthig, like a possible way to self-sufficiency and climate neutrality, as a good practice example from the town of Pfaffenhofen. Among the key success factors towards a sustainable community, Helmut Muthig mentioned raising awareness and attention seeking, engaging citizens and defining key stakeholders to ensure commitment and cooperation, agreeing on clear and stringent targets, developing a clear implementation plan, supporting planning and project management through software tools, but also providing financial participation opportunities and supporting consistent communication.

The debate focused on very specific and relevant topics: what happens to the energy produced in excess, that is not used; at what price does the Pfaffenhofen municipality sell the excess energy or buy it when needed; where should local authorities look for inspiration to find solutions; how can municipalities be more focused on long term projects that aim at a longer period than the election cycle; how important is the civil society in putting pressure over this process; how realistic is stopping the average temperature from constantly increasing on the long term.

This webinar is followed by 5 other similar events, all part of the Ready4NetZero project. This capacity-building programme targets the municipal administration staff from the Ready4NetZero pilot cities, but also other local authorities in Croatia, Hungary, Poland or Romania. Throughout the project, the team will organize in-person workshops to address country-specific needs, online train-the-trainer events, as well as a study visit to several forerunner cities in Germany, for a good practice transfer and experience sharing among local public administrations converging on developing and implementing local long-term climate strategies.

Find the webinar recording here.

Ready4NetZero is an EUKI funded project coordinated by the Polish Network “ENERGIE CITÉS”, with a consortium formed of the Ecologic Institute from Germany, ENERGIAKLUB from Hungary, REGEA from Croatia and Energy Cities Romania. Ready4NetZero aims to support cities from the participating countries in developing and implementing 2050 climate neutrality strategies and seeks to do this by building capacity, knowledge and skills among local leaders, municipal staff and local stakeholders, facilitating experiences exchange and dialogue between local authorities.