Brussels, 11/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - Within the context of the United Nations climate conference currently taking place in Paris, the Brittany region, in collaboration with the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), has published a document, presented on Thursday 3 December, containing a raft of concrete proposals for addressing climate change at both local and regional levels.
The regions propose: - increasing framework cooperation within sea basins and identify, collecting and sharing relevant good and bad practices and case-studies; - promoting peer-review to scale up and replicate good practice, prioritising key areas where threats are faced; - further promoting the use of inventories and monitoring methods of our greenhouse gas emissions, as well as transparent reporting procedures; - mobilising funds, building capacities and strengthening institutional support to develop and implement adaptation and mitigation plans and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing new, more sustainable energy solutions, facilitating whenever possible marine energy production technologies, setting the example of an industrial model shift by boosting a low carbon and circular economy, in line with the recently presented Commission strategy (see EUROPE 10262), adapting to climate change in continuation of the Mexico Pact (2010); - supporting and contributing to the creation of effective multilevel governance models in line with the Ljubljana Declaration on energy efficiency in Mediterranean buildings, encouraging climate initiatives, such as ClimateKnowledge and Innovation Communities (Climate-KIC) and the joint action plan to protect the Mediterranean coasts contained in the Bologna Charter.
The peripheral maritime regions are in the front line of climate change, the document says, as islands or bordering the sea or the ocean. They face rising water levels, coastal erosion and more severe flooding, and are progressively better organising. For example, the Valencia region has produced a strategy that includes 100 measures to tackle climate change; the French regions have introduced a regional climate, air and energy scheme; Crete (Greece) and the Azores (Portugal) have included sections in their Operational Programmes and regional strategies dealing specifically with adaptation to climate change. These regions are already turning to smart technologies, public transport, the circular economy and energy transition and, in light of this, have played a major role in preparing national contributions (INDCs) for COP 21, the report states. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)