At the 24th meeting of its Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE) on Wednesday 12 June, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) requested a grant of €4.8 billion under the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy in order to facilitate sustainable transition in coal regions. The meeting was held in Bucharest, as part of a European conference with the title: “Making the energy transition happen locally”.
Witold Stępień (EPP, Poland), the rapporteur for one of the three draft opinions adopted during the meeting, said that “Local and regional authorities should [...] have better access to finance, to new technologies and to capacity building programmes in order to ensure a fair energy transition in coal regions but also carbon intense regions and islands across Europe”.
CoR President Karl-Heinz Lambertz echoed this message in his speech opening the conference and again in an interview he gave to journalists, where he stressed the importance of a “fair and well-managed transition”, and mentioned coal regions in particular. “We must not ignore the fact that significant changes often lead to social problems. There are all the regions that depend on coal, for example. You can't say just suddenly say: that’s it, it's all over. They must be helped to meet the challenge of change”, he said.
On the subject of funding, he stressed in his speech the CoR's opposition to cuts in cohesion policy in the post-2020 EU budget, while also reiterating his call to increase the EU budget from 1.1% to 1.3% of the EU Twenty-Seven’s Gross National Income.
Cities taking the lead
The CoR President also highlighted the role of local and regional authorities in the fight against climate change. “Cities and regions are the answer to the climate and energy challenge. They are not just implementing decisions but taking the lead”, he said.
He went on to illustrate the point with the example of the Convention of EU Mayors (see EUROPE 11412/10), which now has more than 9,000 cities as members who have voluntarily committed themselves to exceeding the European Union's climate and energy targets. In Mr. Lambertz’s opinion, “it is one of the most powerful tools to boost climate and energy action at local level”.
In the press interview, he also stressed the need for “good governance at all levels of power” and the importance of everyone “doing their part”, pointing out that, although local authorities have an extremely important role “when it comes to mobility, housing and consumer attitudes”, these are areas where they have no impact.
He believes that this is why international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals are so important, because “it all fits together and encourages everyone to move in the same direction”.
He also told journalists that he finds it a matter of regret that economic and financial interests delay or even prevent environmental objectives from being achieved, and concluded by stressing the importance of politicians making the decisions. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot - intern)