Responsible Team and roles

• Climate Alliance: Andrea Carosi, Miguel Morcillo
  • Coordinator and facilitator
• UTARTU: Elis Vollmer, Hector Pagan
  • Policy expert – Speaker
• ALEA: Florin Andronescu, Laurentiu Mihet
  • EUCF National Hub & Country Experts – Speaker
  • Sharing inputs and experiences on regional funding for SECAP implementation
• CPU: Harald Grill
  • Governance for climate neutral cities (Legal competencies, needs and Barriers, cooperation needs between different governance layers)
• EUCF: Dora Biondani
  • EUCF coordination – Facilitator

Why this workshop?

In recent years, severe droughts have hit much of Europe, including CEE countries. Last year, in Hungary, lakes and rivers disappeared, as 90 percent of the country suffered from the drought. In Poland, the lack of rain had a devastating impact on agriculture, with the sector losing some 1.35 billion euros due to lower yields. In Romania, there was a seven-fold increase in wildfires. The energy crisis is touching more and more local authorities and communities.

Despite these damaging and critical effects, national policies in Central and Eastern European countries do not reflect the climate and energy emergency we are experiencing. Governments have been dragging their feet on meeting climate and energy targets and implementing green and climate-neutral policy goals within the European community. Furthermore, the multi-level governance process between the sub-national levels is still lagging behind, and access to financing is key for transforming ambitious Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans into projects.

During this workshop, city and energy agency experts will share their insights and experiences in policies and financing models used by frontrunner municipalities to successfully implement climate and energy related strategies and action plans (e.g. SECAP).

Objectives of the workshop

• Creating inspiration by sharing good practices on financing models for implementing green and energy measures at the local level in CEE countries
• Discussing main CEE countries pitfalls for SECAP implementation and elaborating recommendations on how to better support CEE municipalities
• Practical key-measures/approaches to overcome hampering factors to shape and implement green and energy policies in CEE municipalities

Agenda

00′

Welcome and introduction – Andrea welcomes participants and introduces speakers and rapporteurs

15′

Interventions – Two speakers get max. 7′ each to present their main points on the topics (sharing slides)

• Speaker 1 CA (Andrea Carosi) – Overview of CEESEU findings on gaps and barriers to implement climate and energy policies in CEE countries
• Speaker 2 EUCF (Dora Biondani) – Key components to implement a successful investment plan for energy and climate projects

30′

Focus discussions in parallel – Participants form 2 groups and discuss the thematic topic they will address. Invite the groups to note down key insights/challenges/recommendations to be shared with the big group (one flipchart each)

Group 1 Policy

Recommendations to further improve cooperation between national, regional and local governments for successful policy making in CEE countries.

• Participants: UT, CPU, ALEA, Climate Alliance
• Facilitator: CA (Andrea Carosi)
• Participants: UT, CPU, ALEA, Climate Alliance

Group 2 Financing

How to link national/regional funding programme and policies or private funding sources (e.g. investment bank, crowdfunding) with SECAP implementation (or general climate&energy planning)

• Facilitator: EUCF (Dora Biondani)
• Participants: MAE, TREA, ENVIROS

10′ Quick feedback from groups’ facilitators to share key insights.

20′ Open discussion led by Andrea on the key insights from the 2 groups

5′ Wrap-up – Concluding remarks by Andrea

Notes

The topics will be discussed building on (i) insights from CEESEU deliverables on CEE policies/pitfalls/recommendations (see table below), and (ii) lessons learnt by EUCF experiences.
The discussion will try to collect inputs, solutions, inspiring examples to be integrated in the final version of the deliverables above.

The workshop will explore different policies and financing models used by frontrunner municipalities to successful implement climate and energy related strategies and action plans (e.g. SECAP).

Detatils

Location: Magnet House, Bojtorján Room
Date/Time: 7th Sept. 09:00 – 10:30, limit 20 participants
Workshop duration: 90 min
Target audience: public authority representatives, energy agency experts, municipal utilities

Workshop facilitators

Andrea Carosi | Project Manager

Dora Biondani | Project Manager (EPAH, EUCF), Climate Alliance

Participants

CEESEU results – Main policy and financing challenges and solutions