As part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme in support of the European Union’s Green Deal and EU’s Mission “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030”, NetZeroCities will support European cities to drastically and rapidly cut their greenhouse gas emissions through systemic and transformative actions to achieve climate neutrality.
Launched in October 2021, this four-year project will support the delivery of the Mission, working directly with cities to support their transformation through technical, social and financial expertise.
Cities will apply to become a Mission City through an Expression of Interest process run by the European Commission in late 2021 and early 2022. Selected cities will then join NetZeroCities and be supported through the process of developing a Climate City Contract (CCC). The CCC will be a politically binding contract, an expression of commitment and a political and goal-oriented engagement of each city, and its stakeholders and citizens to pursue climate neutrality by 2030. Other levels of government will also play their part in the CCC. Along the way, the project will launch a one-stop-shop platform where cities can find all the information, support and innovative approaches they need, bringing cities together and sharing good practices for replication and contributing to the development of the Climate City Contract. In addition, NetZeroCities will also be offering funding to cities for the development and implementation of pilot projects, which will benefit not only the cities involved but also a wider group of cities through a learning model.
Operating the One Stop Shop platform, engaging directly with cities through one-to-one support, sharing good practices for replication, contributing to the development of the Climate City Contract process and formulating policy recommendations are some of the tasks that Eurocities will be responsible for throughout the project.
NetZeroCities is coordinated by EIT Climate-KIC and builds on the expertise of 33 partners, such as universities, think tanks, associations, consultancies, city networks and research organisations from 13 countries.
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