The Third Vice-President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, today closed the fifteenth meeting of the #Biodirectos cycle, organised by the Biodiversity Foundation, in which the Collaboration Platform for Climate Neutrality of Spanish Cities was presented, an innovation and collaboration initiative aimed at providing a service to Spanish cities that aspire to be climate neutral by 2030. During the meeting, the vice-president stressed that “we must promote processes for cities to identify actions that allow them to achieve climate neutrality when there are short and medium-term time horizons” and that is why “the platform is a fundamental tool to apply and identify actions that make this possible”. In addition, he pointed out that “the situation we are experiencing in terms of resource management and decision-making is changing significantly, which is why the implementation of this type of initiative is essential”. In this sense, the technical advice that is part of one of the platform’s services “can help avoid uncertainty for those cities and urban environments that are not clear about how to do things”. The platform is presented as “a good vaccine against excuses”, he added. Ribera also indicated that “the ecological transition is presented as an opportunity for development” and that “we cannot leave problems as a legacy, but opportunities that make us feel proud of our effort”. That is why, he also stressed that “achieving climate neutrality is impossible without cities and their neighbours. It is the transformative vector with the greatest power.” This #Biodirectos was also attended by Patrick Child, director for the European Union’s Smart and Climate Neutral Cities Mission; Joan Ribó, mayor of Valencia; Carlos Martínez, mayor of Soria and Julio Lumbreras, professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and coordinator of the Mission Platform in Spain. The platform is part of the NetZeroCities project and aims to complement and extend to more Spanish municipalities the work of the European Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities coordinated by the European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe programme. The initiative will have as its main beneficiaries the City Councils of Spanish cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants or provincial capitals that have the will to achieve total or partial climate neutrality by 2030. In addition, it will offer training services and access to information to cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. It will also develop training and learning initiatives to strengthen capacities and facilitate citizen participation and activation processes. It will provide support to cities in the search for financing formulas and attraction of financial resources in their territories and will also accompany the design of portfolios of transformative projects for mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

REPRESENTATION OF SEVEN SPANISH CITIES

Among the 100 cities selected to participate in the European Mission for Climate Neutral and Smart Cities are seven Spanish cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Vitoria-Gasteiz and Zaragoza, which is a great opportunity for Spain and a recognition of its work and the strengthening of its leadership in climate action. These seven cities, which are part of the citiES 2030 initiative, intend to be an example, within the framework of this platform, to accelerate the implementation of solutions with social, economic and environmental impact, bringing together public and private efforts for urban transformation.