Empowering local authorities for accelerating the CET

Introduction

The European Commission stresses the urgent need for supporting small and remote communities in Europe in their efforts to meet the EU mid-term decarbonisation targets for 2030. This involves aligning financial incentives with the clean energy transition (CET), supporting knowledge sharing, and building capacity.

Project Overview

LOCAL GoGREEN empowers local authorities to accelerate the CET. The project will use an innovative bottom-up approach, delivering need-specific capacity building to local authorities in pilot municipalities in:

• Slovenia
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Germany
• Italy
• Spain

This capacity building will focus on integrated climate and energy planning (ICEP). Guidance and best practice sharing will improve the synergies among public and private stakeholders of the 6 pilots in implementing integrated measures at the local level.

Project Implementation

Through a coherent Roadmap, each pilot will select 3 projects from 5 core priority areas:

1. E-mobility
2. Energy efficiency of buildings
3. Renewable energy generation
4. Landscape planning for increased carbon absorption
5. Waste-to-energy

Each pilot will prepare a project pipeline and develop pre-feasibility studies. A Transnational Expert Group (TEG) will advise the Local Working Groups on the technical, financial, social, and environmental aspects of the project pipelines.

Investment and Replication

Furthermore, the TEG will facilitate the deployment of targeted investments provided by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and International Financial Institutions (IFIs). It will also be available to nearby municipalities grouped into territorial clusters for further replication and capitalisation.

Upscaling and Communication

Project results will be upscaled through the clusters, the availability of a multilingual training platform, and the created Transnational Municipal Collaborative Network as a Community of Practice. This network is envisaged to be transformed into an EEIG for long-term impact.

Targeted communication and dissemination at local, national, and EU levels, along with cooperation with similar LIFE and Horizon projects, will ensure visibility, complementarity, and increased shared experiences.