Brussels, 29/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 29 November, in Brussels, towns and cities renewed their sustainable energy commitment by signing the Covenant of Mayors for the fourth year running. With 263 mayors signing at this year's ceremony, the number of signatories rises to over 3,000 cities. Each city signing up to the covenant commits to reducing CO2 emissions by over 20% by the year 2020.
Impact of towns. Towns have the best chance of having a real impact and triggering the movement among their citizens. This is first of all because three quarters of citizens live and work in towns, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek pointed out as he opened the ceremony at the European Parliament, adding that citizens “consume 75% of energy used in the EU. Over half of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe come from urban areas”. As a result, it is clear that “the future of energy policies will be defined in the towns. That is where investment decisions are made, whether in public transport, renovation of buildings or car sharing”, Claude Turmes (Greens/EFA, Luxembourg), rapporteur on the new energy efficiency directive, told the press. It is also right that the European Parliament should receive “a reviving injection because it is here in Brussels that we need examples of best practice”, to offset the presence of large gas or oil groups, Turmes said.
Best practice. Ilmar Reepalu, Mayor of Malmö, Sweden, explained that, with better waste management, the town has been able to produce electricity and heating, and obtain biogas from organic waste. This allows the town to put 50% of its buses on the road using “homemade” fuel, thus spending less on fuel from abroad. The mayor of Riga, Latvia, Nils Usakovs, said efforts made by his town in the context of the Covenant of Mayors concerned the renovation of buildings that went up in the sixties. European funds have helped to finance changes to housing and to reduce energy consumption by half.
Funding. It is very expensive for towns to take up the race for greater efficiency. Rome has taken up the public-private partnership bid (one third from public money) but the mayor of the town, Gianni Alemanno, has put forward another idea - that investment arising from the Covenant of Mayors should be excluded from the Financial Stability Pact. In the meantime, the Commission has already taken a step forward to better support towns on the road to adjusting to climate change, especially in its legislative proposals for cohesion policy over the programming period 2014-2020. Mercedes Bresso, President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), was keen to welcome this point, taking delight in seeing that elements dear to the CoR have been taken on board in the legislative package.
The ABC of measures. Mercedes Bresso is above all insistent that the pact signed by the mayors should go still further, and presents a proposal in the form of an ABC: Activate, Broaden and Cooperate. In her opinion, it is necessary to get down to work (activate) to sign investment, broaden out to react in time to the other challenges taking shape (such as water and air quality and waste management), and finally cooperate with other regions of the world at regional level, especially the regions of the Mediterranean and to the east. (MD/transl.jl)