The Climate Task Force of European local governments

Local governments need a stronger sustainable energy and transport European policy

The energy consumption of London is the same as that of Portugal. Munich uses as much energy as some of the smaller African countries. This helps to understand the importance of cities and towns in Europe in reducing our impact on global warming. The actions of cities and towns are vital if we are to make a difference to climate protection, energy efficiency, and promotion of renewable and decentralised energy supply for the fulfilment of our European and national commitments. ,Cities and towns are responsible for urban planning, transport, construction, purchasing and a wide range of purchasing decisions. They have a major role to play in reversing our impact on climate change. ,We have all experienced the recent climate extremes and are starting to understand the gap between what we should be doing and what we are doing to reduce the impacts of our life styles on the earth.
One year ago (Munich, 17th September 2002), some concerned and experienced municipalities together with some City Networks (ICLEI, Climate Alliance and Energie-Cités, representing hundreds of cities and towns all over Europe), launched a call to create the Climate Task force of Local Government to lobby national and European institutions in order to translate international commitments into legally binding regulations, quantified targets, and practical instruments and measures, crucially to argue for greater opportunities for cities and towns to get involved in climate change issues.
On 17th September 2003, this task force held a meeting with a concerned group of MEPs interested in climate change and sustainable energy issues, led by Claude Turmes (LUX). The group recently launched a Call for an Energy Intelligent Europe (EI-Europe) . The purpose of this meeting was to start the process of working together to assist the work of MEPs on energy and climate change. A series of important join actions have been agreed:
- 1) Refining the Combined Heat and Power directive (Amended proposal of the 23rd of July 2003: COM 2003 0461) to include targets, and further encouragement for cities and towns. ,- 2) improving the draft directive on eco-design of products requiring manufacturers to accelerate their development of energy saving and efficient equipment ,- 3) contributing to the very ground breaking draft directive on energy services to make sure that cities and towns can make a greater contribution ,- 4) The task force has also agreed to assist and control national governments to translate the recent directive on the sustainability of energy supplies (security of supply, energy efficiency, renewables and decentralised production), very important given the recent blackouts across European cities.
The task force has a programme of regular meetings with MEPs and would welcome the contribution from experts and other cities to their work. Further information on the task force and their work can be obtained from:,Gérard Magnin, Energie-Cités e-mail: [e-mail], ,Local contacts include:
,München (DE) ,Joachim LORENZ [e-mail],Gerhard URBAINCZYK [e-mail]
Heidelberg (DE) ,Eckart WÜRZNER [e-mail]
Clermont-Ferrand (FR) ,Danielle AUROI (MEP) [e-mail]
Newcastle upon Tyne (GB) ,Allen CREEDY [e-mail]
Leicester (GB) ,Cllr Andy VINCENT [e-mail],Don LACK [e-mail]
Delft (NL) ,Johan VAN REENEN [e-mail]
Networks ,Climate Alliance ,Gotelind ALBER [e-mail]
Iclei ,Gino VAN BEGIN [e-mail]
Energie-Cités ,Gérard MAGNIN [e-mail]
,Annex :
Orientations proposed to the European Commission suggested by the networks: Energie-Cités, Climate Alliance, ICLEI
,Energy
To achieve a climate-friendly and sustainable energy policy at European level, and in line with the Green Paper "Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply in Europe" which highlights the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, we recommend the European Commission to take new steps in the on-going and future legislation:
- To monitor and publish to what extent climate protection and sustainable energy issues have been taken into consideration by Member States during the implementation of the new directive amending the directives for the internal markets in electricity and natural gas, as foreseen in the article 3 of the directive;
- To include strong measures and instruments in the proposal for the directive promoting energy efficiency services, in order to oblige suppliers to work towards a more sustainable energy system, including accompanying measures to stimulate the demand for such new services;
- To prepare and publish for both heating and cooling a series of target standards for energy consumption in existing and new buildings, including housing and office buildings, in order to strongly improve the performance of buildings, the recent directive being considered as a first phase;
- To make the public sector at all levels a leader in sustainable energy issues, in particular through public procurement schemes to stimulate a more sustainable supply of efficient and clean products;
- To make Europe the most advanced region world-wide in energy efficiency and renewable issues, including eco-design requirements for energy-consuming products, through the proposal for a directive recently published;
- To include legally binding targets in the cogeneration directive to actually double the share of electricity supplied by combined heat and power (CHP) in the next ten years;
- To take an initiative in promoting the use of renewable energy sources for heat, the larger share of renewable potential being from biomass. A directive seems an appropriate instrument to reach this goal;
- To launch specific campaigns and support programmes to help the new Member States to integrate intelligent energy issues in their policies, as the restructuring of these countries is an opportunity to influence the development in the next few months and years (through Structural Funds for example).,
Transport
To achieve a climate-friendly, sustainable and integrated urban transport system at European level, we recommend the European Commission
- To create a frame of action specific to urban transport issues (in the thematic strategy on the urban environment / a Green Paper on Urban Transport), postulating a new mobility view amongst local political decision makers across Europe and offering guidelines to work towards sustainability;
- To identify common standards, measures and limits in various aspects of urban transport policies (like minimum standards for safety, comfort and reliability in public transport provisions) and of car technology (introduction of EU-Labels for fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, low energy tires, speed control, etc.);
- To develop a coherent and concise EU legislation on urban transport (like target oriented pricing for all modes based on user and polluter pays principle or the introduction of hierarchical speed-limits) and urban development (urban density and urban development around public transport stations / transport interchanges);
- To accelerate the integration of environmental considerations and sustainability criteria in all transport relevant areas, to adopt quantified environmental targets for transport and urban infrastructure and to propose solutions to measure the effectiveness of urban transport policies.
,Local action
There is an opportunity for the Commission as well as other European institutions to take advantage of the experience of local authorities through better involvement and dialogue with local authorities and their relevant networks in all ongoing and future processes on climate change.
We urge the European Commission to strengthen the climate change activities of local authorities and their networks, providing financial and political support, in particular,for:
- Their public awareness raising campaigns on climate change, sustainable energy and mobility like the In town without my car! day;
- Their campaigns to involve more local authorities in climate protection;
- Their programmes to promote good practice and the exchange of experiences, in particular to provide advice for beginners, to rank best practices according to their transferability and to disseminate and support measures that can be implemented and have an impact all over Europe;
- Their efforts to further develop methodologies, practical tools, monitoring, and quality control schemes;
- Their endeavours to evaluate existing approaches, and further explore new instruments to involve local authorities into climate change policy, such as certificates and multi-level agreements.,