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Cities are critical hotspots for climate mitigation and have ambitious visions to reap the multiple co-benefits of climate action, yet gaps still persist between local action plans and the pace of current transformations.
The Urban Transitions Mission Centre (UTMC) is a global platform that promotes urban sustainability and facilitates climate-neutral transitions. The UTMC helps cities to bridge knowledge and capacity gaps by linking cities with policy, implementation, and funding solutions via exchanges that transcend national and world Regions’ borders.
Building on the European Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, the UTMC supports the activities of the Urban Transitions Mission of Mission Innovation, and it enables a wide international knowledge and practice network of cities and urban stakeholders that helps drive transitions globally. It will enable cities to build their capacity in a networking environment with access to knowledge and tools on urban systems integration, technology developments, successful policies, investment and funding opportunities, as well as the cobenefits, mistakes and trade-offs that cities encounter in the pathway towards a net-zero urban environment.
The UTMC makes available evidence-based solutions and good practices to accelerate urban transitions and promote financing and funding opportunities to implement integrated urban climate action. It offers advanced frameworks and moderated learning across governance levels to raise awareness of and capacities for climate neutrality policies. The UTMC also establishes a forum for international exchange and cooperation on climate-neutral and net-zero urban transitions by organizing global and regional events and comprehensive dissemination measures to raise visibility of EU and international good practice and strengthen international cooperation.
Finding synergetic uses for energy and nature-based actions can improve outcomes for both, whether by improving the use of space through co-location, providing general well-being improvements for users, identifying alternate sources of finance and business models to allow for simultaenous uses, and generally improving the use cases for both options. Contagem, in Brazil, is one such example of a city undertaking both energy and nature-based action.
Download the policy brief here.
Cities can do a lot to reduce the energy intensity of their biggest energy-consuming sectors, namely buildings and transport, given the powers at thei disposal. However, various actors must work together to address the unique financial, technical, and socioeconomic barriers. The example of Zhytomyr, Ukraine, illustrates the benefits of improved energy efficiency, including greater resilience.
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Decarbonization policies and strategies intersect with existing inequalities, resulting in varied impacts. This means transition will affect people differently, with groups better able to adapt than others. Given the recognized disparities in transport related to income, gender, race, age, and physical abilities, a just transition focused on users is urgent and represents a basic right. Advancing a just transition requires labor market policies that provide users with income support on their daily commutes and transport planning strategies that leave no one behind. These measures aim to provide affordable and equitable access to opportunities, reduce inequalities and discrimination based on minorities and gender, and address the structural injustices within urban mobility systems and its current patterns. The City of Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei, provides a model for other cities to follow.
Download the policy brief here.
India is uniquely positioned to scale up the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs), leapfrogging traditional mobility models that perpetuate congestion, air pollution and oil dependence, while enhancing innovative business models and driving down costs of components’ manufacturing. As India undergoes a deep economic transformation, rapid growth in passenger and freight demand will necessitate a shift towards more sustainable transport solutions. Two and three-wheelers (2/3Ws) have enormous relevance to Indian cities, and electrifying them holds immense potential to transform commuting and transport of goods. This shift promotes affordable, equitable and accessible options while also decarbonizing the transport system in the country. India’s experience serves as inspiration for other countries to pursue similar efforts in this direction.
Download the policy brief here.
The UTMC is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe. Since December 2022, a consortium of urban experts from organizations such as the Austrian Research Promotion Agency on behalf of JPI Urban Europe, the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), Eurocities, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and LGI Sustainable Innovation, is facilitating the set-up and roll out of of the UTMC’s activities.
UTMC has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme under the Grant Agreement n°101095976 — Call: HORIZON-MISS-2021-CIT-02 — Project name: Global Knowledge Exchange Centre (GKEC) for Urban Climate Neutrality
