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Urbanization and the concentration of energy-consuming economic activities make cities responsible for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The EU Mission “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities”, recently launched a call for starting a pathway towards “100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030”. The list of 336 candidate cities (86% from the EU-27 and 14% from associated or negotiating countries) was published in February 2022. The cities constitute a very large and diverse sample that was used to conduct this timely research to identify the main factors that can drive and support a smart and sustainable transition of urban areas. A critical analysis of the main achievements in five main driving factors (local climate planning, climate emergency declaration, participation in networks, international projects and competitions) provides insights on the main factors driving cities towards climate smart actions. Results show that 76% of the cities have a local climate, in 82% of cases developed under the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, which involves about 75% of the candidate cities. URBACT is the most popular funding programme, with 23% of cities involved in at least one funded project. The five selected driving factors seem to capture fairly well the level of "activism" of the sample cities in pursuing smart and climate-related projects and initiatives (15 of the 16 cities that have initiatives and activities in their background that fall into all five sets of the Venn diagram are among the 112 cities selected in this first phase of Mission 100 CNSC). 90% of the sample cities are part of at least one Transnational Municipal Network, which is the most important influencing factor, among the five analysed, for cities applying for this Mission. The original results of this timely study can be useful to decision-makers at all levels, but especially to other cities, to enhance knowledge on steps to be taken to accelerate the transition to carbon neutrality. Moreover, the rich dataset made available by this research represents an important knowledge base not only for future monitoring of the selected cities' progress during the implementation phases, but also for the desired replication effects in other urban areas. N/A

European cities across the Mediterranean region face common climatic threats. Urbanised areas are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and climate extremes. Cities concentrate population and assets, and losses and damages as a result of climate change impacts such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, landslides, coastal hazards are likely. So far, however, there is no systematic understanding how cities in the Mediterranean Europe are preparing to adapt to these impacts, nor of how they aim to increase their resilience and adaptive capacity. Understanding how cities plan to manage climatic risks will help to identify action gaps, allocate resources and provides better-informed climate policy, at local, regional national and international scale. This research gathered and analysed adaptation planning documents in a representative sample of 73 cities across 9 Mediterranean European countries (France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta) in the context of their national policies. The results and this paper shed important light on the progress of adaptation planning, by focusing on identified impacts and proposed adaptation measures. N/A

Circular economy requires a material-specific and systemic approach in the design and management of production processes, as indicated in the European Commission Action Plan adopted in 2015 to promote global competitiveness, sustainable economic growth and create new jobs. This new approach implicates a more efficient use of resources within the entire production chain that aims to "close the loop" of the product life cycle. It promotes a self-regeneration that turns waste into resources. In this way, the recycling and reuse of recycled materials is constantly increasing and the demand for raw materials is decreasing, allowing waste to be contained. The concepts of the circular economy were applied to develop a two-region partial equilibrium model of an automotive manufacturing plant based on the ETSAP MARKAL-EFOM (TIMES) generator, aimed at identifying more efficient and sustainable configurations of the production system through a scenario analysis, taking into account energy recovery and recycling of plastic waste material from production processes as well as reducing CO2 pollutant emissions. The multi-region approach allowed modelling two industrial units, the Assembly Unit and the Plastic Unit, as two different modelling "regions" with independent production of electricity, heat and cooling. Such "regions" are connected through unidirectional "trades" processes, i.e. the components produced in the Plastic Unit and he polypropylene waste, which represent a secondary input material. The model was calibrated based on real consumption data for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 and optimized over a time horizon of ten years. Five medium-term evolutionary scenarios addressed energy and materials recovery and evaluated the feasibility of innovative technological solutions: photovoltaic, energy recovery from the molding process of polypropylene components, production of syngas from waste materials, recovery of polypropylene waste, use of pigmented polypropylene for bumper molding.

Schools4energy is a laboratory of sustainable experimentation for the implementation of good practices that aims to promote conscious and virtuous energy behaviours and energy efficiency in the schools. The activities, developed in the framework of the INTERREG MED PrioritEE project, involve the students, the teachers and the staff personnel of Primary and Lower Secondary Schools of the Municipality of Potenza. The Schools4energy laboratory is made up of three integrated modules (School race, Artists for energy, Energy at stake) based on different methodologies (analytical methods, co-creation and gamification) in order to increase the interest and the involvement of students and enhance their preferences and talents. The proposed activities pursue multiple objectives: to increase students’ knowledge and skills on energy, to raise awareness on energy consumption, to encourage energy consumption reduction, to promote behavioural changes.

Second Assessment of Local Climate Action Plan (LCAPs) in 85 Urban Audit core cities, EU-28.

Evidence from the Second Assessment of Local Climate Change Plans conducted on all Urban Audit (UA) Cities across the EU-28 was presented. The UA Cities are large- and medium-sized cities of regional representativeness and comprise more than 900 European cities in total. As part of the assessment researchers collect and analyse the cities’ local adaptation and mitigation plans. This intervention will focus on the state and content of these plans as well as the information used to develop the plans: which information was derived from national assessments, which information was produced at local level and which information gaps were encountered.

27 p. Cities are widely recognised as being pivotal to fight climate change. They magnify the drivers of climate change, experience the impacts and also concentrate the highest room for action. Although urban areas are broadly claimed to be climate leaders, there is no archetype of right actions given the highly contextual differences among them. Yet, the how and why cities respond to global environmental challenges in the context of increasingly competitive economies needs further research. In this paper we aim at advancing in this regard by assessing the state of the art on urban climate actions in two European Mediterranean Countries: Spain and Italy that face similar climate change challenges. Based on an extensive review of documents, we analyse mitigation and adaptation plans of 26 Spanish and 32 Italian Urban Audit cities, as representative samples. Our results show relevant differences between Spanish and Italian cities in terms of the starting time of their climate actions as well their implementation. We concur with existing literature in that mitigation is more advanced than adaptation actions and take evidence in both countries and we also demonstrate that international and national networking initiatives are being instrumental in engaging cities in climate action.

47 p. Cities are widely recognised as being pivotal to fight climate change. Cities magnify the drivers of climate change, experience the impacts and also concentrate the highest room for action. Given the 70% of the global emissions that cities are responsible for, national governments are unable to meet their international commitments for addressing mitigation and adaptation without the action and cooperation of cities. In turn, the capacity of local governments to address climate change is largely determined by the institutional architecture within which they are integrated. As a result, the relationship between the different arenas of authority and the integration of cities in national and international networks is considered critical in shaping the global capacity to govern climate change. This work aims to understand how multi-level climate governance and alliances of cities (national and international) are influencing the climate change capacity and performance of municipalities. This has been done by focusing on two national contexts of the European Union, Italy and Spain, in which climate policy, multi-level governance frameworks, the effects of the national and international networks of cities, and the climate response of cities are analysed through an extensive review of scientific and grey literature, and institutional documents. The results concur with existing literature on the importance of constructing collaborative multi-level climate frameworks at the national scale, that fully integrate the local level, in order to support cities to develop consistent climate action and raise awareness of the responsibility they have in this policy field.