THOMAS OSDOBA

European Union’s Mission of “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030

Abstract

NetZeroCities will support Europe and in particular European cities to drastically cut down greenhouse gas emissions through climate action to achieve ‘climate neutrality’, one of the biggest challenges our societies face today.

NetZeroCities (NZC) is part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme in support of  European Union’s Green Deal. NZC has been designed to help cities overcome the current structural, institutional and cultural barriers they face in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2030.

NZC will support the EU’s Mission of “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” newly-launched as part of the Horizon Europe programme. The project will work as a service-oriented platform supported by world-class practitioners. It will help European cities by providing them with the support and solutions they need to achieve their Net Zero goal in a socially inclusive way.

New and existing tools, resources and expertise will be developed and promoted into a one-stop platform accessible to all cities through an online portal. Dedicated services will be designed to support cities that are part of the EU’s Mission “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030”. In addition, NetZeroCities will support a series of Pilots to help drive rapid learning about how to achieve climate neutrality at city scale, an run a Twinning programme to enable peer-learning.

Biography

Thomas Osdoba joined EIT Climate-KIC in 2018 as a Senior Advisor. He created and launched Healthy, Clean Cities, Europe’s leading effort to help cities respond to the climate emergency and build inclusive and prosperous communities. The initiative helped to inform the European Commission’s ‘Mission for 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030’. He now leads a consortium of 33 European organizations as NetZeroCities to implement the Mission.