European Elections 2024

Energy transition requires action from different levels of government. While the national and local level have received ample scholarly attention, thus far little attention has been paid to the regional level. This is remarkable because policy makers across Europe are wondering what governance of regional transition actually is and how to shape and implement it.

Adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate changes is unavoidable and action is needed at all levels of governance. Local and regional authorities (LRAs) are increasingly designing and implementing adaptation strategies and/or plans. As different policy-makers progress with their adaptation actions, consistent assessments of progress and performance become more important as also highlighted in the updated EU Adaptation Strategy. This study aims to support LRAs by providing practical recommendations on how the performance of adaptation measures can be assessed, progress measured, and targets defined based on insights from existing academic and grey literature as well as from examples of local and regional adaptation plans.

The European Parliament has underlined the need to involve the regional and local levels of government in efforts to ensure that the adaptation goal of the Paris Agreement – which provides a framework for global action to address climate change post-2020 – is met. A number of initiatives have been put in place to support regions, cities, and local authorities in their efforts to align with the EU's transition to climate neutrality. Examples of these initiatives include the Covenant of Mayors for climate and energy, the 'EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities', and the 'EU Mission: Adaptation to Climate Change', all promoted by the European Commission.

In the EU, the Green Deal is saluted as a new package of policy interventions aiming at achieving social goals such as job creation and reducing economic inequality – mostly by means of renewable energy and resource efficiency. However, the ongoing energy transition has been affected by COVID-19-related policy measures. This work proposes to give insights into the EU citizens' pre-pandemic perception of some key renewable energy transition, sustainability and resilience factors, which may be crucial with a view to finding prime energy policy indications useful for the post-pandemic recovery. Making use of 2019 EU Eurobarometer data, selected aspects of EU citizens' perceptions of energy policy are evaluated. Logit regressions are estimated to render energy perceptions modelling.

New green activities in regions tend to build on regional capabilities. This paper makes a first attempt to test the impact of political support for environmental policy at the national and regional scales, besides regional capabilities, on the ability of 95 regions in seven European countries to diversify into new green technologies during the period 2000–12. Evidence is found that related capabilities rather than political support in a region are associated with green diversification of regions. However, while political support at the national scale tends to moderate the role of regional capabilities, political support at the regional scale strengthens it.

The aim of the European Green Deal is to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent, by 2050, while maintaining economic growth and prosperity. It is Europe's growth strategy. The transition to a climate-neutral economy with net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) over the course of just 28 years represents an industrial revolution at unprecedented speed, with significant impacts on gross domestic product (GDP), investment, employment, competitiveness, distribution, public finances and monetary stability. Outlining the expected impact of transition to a climate-neutral economy on economic indicators on the basis of analysis by academics and think-tanks and the Commission's impact assessment (IA) of the climate target plan, this briefing focuses in particular on economic output (GDP), public debt, competitiveness, labour markets, energy prices, inflation and distributional effects.

There are three strategic levels for successful energy planning in cities: 1) Integration strategy for integrating energy planning into urban planning institutions; 2) Practice strategy for developing suitable energy planning practices in urban planning institutions, and 3) Vision strategy for the creation and integration of energy visions and scenarios required for long-term decarbonisation. The vision strategy is critical but not well researched and is the focus of this article. Using Strategic Energy Planning (SEP) as an analytical framework, the vision strategy of eight forerunner European cities are analysed. The results indicate that the level of understanding and practice of the vision strategy is still deficient in the cities. However, through trial and error, some cities are finding ways forward.

CoR Opinion - 05/07/2023
Rapporteur: GRYFFROY Andries
ENVE Commission

The subject matter discussed in the article concerns the problem of the energy transformation of the European Union (EU) countries. In the case of the EU, the energy transformation has specific characteristics due to formal legal and institutional provisions. This means that the member states are obliged to implement the adopted Community Energy Strategy, which was defined under the European Green Deal. According to the EU policy, all member states are to have climate-neutral and zero-gas-emission economies by 2050. The energy transformation is to be largely based on the diversification of the energy sources used, with a dominance of renewable energy sources (RES).

The present Handbook is a component of the Committee of the Regions’ ’Green Deal Going Local’ initiative to support the implementation of the Green Deal at the local and regional levels. As part of this initiative, it has created a web portal that provides updated overviews of policy developments of particular relevance for local and regional authorities. The European Green Deal (EGD) is an integral part of the European Commission’s strategy to implement the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals, and the other priorities announced in President von der Leyen’s political guidelines. It covers a broad range of field, e.g. climate neutrality, energy transition, transition to a circular economy, zero pollution strategy, farm to fork strategy, sustainable transport.

Through major commitments such as the Paris Agreement and its own 2050 Longterm Strategy and the European Green Deal, the European Union (EU) has set out to become a carbon neutral and pollution-free continent by 2050. This strategic vision is inextricably linked to efforts to improve the competitiveness, modernisation and prosperity of the Member States while ensuring that European societies benefit from the change on equal terms. The monumental work needed to achieve these objectives requires nothing short of systemic transformation in all policy fields across all levels of government. As the main level of implementation, local and regional authorities (LRAs) are on the frontline of change and are thus a central element in this transformation.

Climate change adaptation has been gathering momentum. At COP26 in 2021, the parties to the UNFCCC agreed to develop a work programme to deliver on the global goal on adaptation; at COP28, two years later, they adopted the framework for achieving that goal. Adaptation efforts should be led locally, by those most at risk, those who know the territory. The EU has been introducing tools, initiatives and strategies to enhance all aspects of climate change adaptation. While there are still barriers to the proper up-take of practical adaptation actions at a local level, in many cases solutions for overcoming them are already available.

The economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic is enormous, at the same time the EU continues to face other long-term crises such as climate change. To make European economies more sustainable and resilient, the European Commission (EC) and EU Member States agreed to set up the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) with a budget of EUR 672.5 billion. The RRF will support investments and structural reforms while contributing to the green and digital transitions.

The European Green Deal is the EU’s strategy to make its economy and society fit for a healthy planet. It advocates a policy approach oriented towards the goals of climate neutrality and circular economy. This refers essentially to the concept of sustainability transitions – understood as long-term transformations of societal systems towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption – which has been promoted in EU discourse for a number of years. This toolkit attempts to translate this approach into concrete tools, methodologies and steps that can be implemented in the context of the EU’s cohesion policy. It focuses on how cohesion policy can support sustainability transitions in the planning and delivery of Partnership Agreements and Programmes, by prioritising available support for the 2021-2027 funding period to facilitate a transition to a climate neutral, green and circular economy. It consists of a set of instruments and questions to guide a strategic reflection and to help deliver the increased ambition of the European Green Deal with the future cohesion policy.

The Green Deal Going Local working group has three specific objectives:
1.To provide a crosscutting view on the numerous policy areas within the European Green Deal and ensure policy coherence and consistency across projects and related opinions.
2.To reinforce the institutional outreach of the European Committee of the Regions on the Green Deal in order to place cities and regions firmly on the path towards climate-neutrality.
3.To channel the challenges that local and regional authorities are facing while implementing the green transition locally and to communicate their achievements and best practices to ensure they can be replicated across the European Union.

This report aims to contribute to the development of new models for regional and local authorities aiming to boost support for Green Transition of their economies through smarter innovation policies, using the smart specialisation approach. The report provides a detailed overview of the lessons learnt from five case studies on regions from across the European Union representing a diversity of approaches to using smart specialisation for Green Transition: the Basque Country in Spain, the Centro region in Portugal, the region of East & North Finland, the region of Western Macedonia in Greece and the region of West Netherlands. This report highlights the context-specific aspects of each region and the cross-cutting elements. Drawing together the different elements presented, the conclusion provides a summary overview of the findings and suggests pathways to innovation-led Green Transition for European regions.