Cities are not only vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, they’re also part of the problem. Did you know that cities produce more than 60% of the global greenhouse gas emissions? That’s why cities need to speed up climate action and have adaptation plans in place. The good news is that many European cities have already committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050!
Let’s check how some European cities are leading the way on climate action:
Milan
The metropolitan city of Milan intends to plant three million trees by 2030!
To transform the city into an urban forest, Milan will plant new trees on roads, streets, parks, roofs, and many other urban spaces.
With this ambitious climate action plan, Milan will decrease the energy consumption demand of buildings and its carbon emissions. Planting more trees will also lower the city’s temperature and remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
Besides having positive effects for climate adaptation and mitigation, these actions will improve the wellbeing of residents as well!
London
London is another European city playing a pioneering role in climate action.
This city has implemented the world’s first “Ultra Low Emission Zone”. This zone is located in central London and operates 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Drivers in this zone need to meet strict emissions standards or pay a fee.
The best part about this policy is that London gets some interesting benefits. The city uses the revenue from the fee to improve the public transport system. And residents are more likely to switch to low emission vehicles.
This innovative climate action policy has already led to 44,000 fewer polluting vehicles in the city, which means fewer carbon emissions too!
Prague
Prague is making public transport more attractive than personal vehicles.
This city is making improvements to its infrastructure to make the transfer between transport modes faster and easier. But that’s not all, Prague is also developing new green areas, walking routes, and cycling spaces!
With these new climate action projects, the city aims to encourage the use of public transportation and reduce personal vehicles on the roads.
This is a fantastic way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, tackle climate change, and make people’s lives easier!
Amsterdam
Amsterdam depends on natural gas to heat homes and businesses. But the city established ambitious climate action targets to phase out natural gas by 2040!
To make this transition possible, the government is working closely with housing corporations, residents, and stakeholders. This way, they can find the best alternatives to natural gas for each part of the city.
The city’s priority will be to ensure that residents’ energy costs do not rise. Likewise, Amsterdam will provide financial support to make the transition to sustainable energy sources affordable for all its residents!
Even though cities are major contributors to climate change, they can create innovative projects to tackle this problem.
These four European cities show that well-designed climate action plans can benefit the environment and citizens. But more importantly, other countries can follow their example and take action as well!
References:
– United Nations – Cities and Pollution
– World Resources Institute – 5 Big Ideas to Address the Climate Crisis and Inequality in Cities
– Eurocities – CITIES LEADING THE WAY ON CLIMATE ACTION
BEV cars are the future, and no oil should be used to transport ourselves and goods. We should care about our planet, there is no planet B after all.
Quit transporting ourselves wit automated transport machines.
Only Walking.
Then we are moving Fossil free.
The irish for instance, has promoted the idea to not sell any oil based cars past 2030. In Ireland there are currently 1 million cars on the road. 80% are 10 years or younger. This means, that by 2040, the hope is that 80% of cars will be EV. Now in theory this sounds great and promising.
Flip side. To power 80% EV cars, ireland will require 2no 2 gigawatt nuclear power stations, to generate the electricity required to power these cars, without affecting the normal run of power grid.
In addition to this, to manufacture and sell 800k EV cars, there is considerable transport involved as Ireland is an island.
In addition to this, there are limited countries in the world extracting lithium from mines. Bare in mind, these lithium mines have devastating effects on local environments and biosphere. So it gets mined. Then sent to a different country for refining. Then sent across the world to the car manufacturers. And that’s just for the battery. They still have to build the rest of the car, with electric robots, that use power grid electricity, that’s run off nuclear power, or hydro power which, depending on the country you live in again has devastating effects on local environments.
So I think the real question here is, for the owner of an EV, is it more environmentally friendly than oil. Yes it is. But only because car manufacturers hide what is required to make an EV car, and dont explain that if everyone has one, then there categorically will be issues with the power grid.
Carpool, train, bus, bike, walk. That’s it
A lot of those issues are the same for manufacturing ice cars too, as you said ireland is an island, Ireland also doesn’t have a car manufacturer so all cars are imported.
New forms of electricity production will have to come anyway as the plan is to remove all fossil fuel productions, maybe nuclear is possibility
Even with EV vehicles we will never drive Fossil free.
Only building a car kost tons of fossil fuels, and mining product.
We will use Fossil fuel yo make electricity, and for building the machines to create “fossil free” electricity.