Climate-KIC presents its Transition Cities project which promotes the low carbon transition in cities.
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This event will take place at the Grand Palais in central Paris, Conference room 5, from 16:00 – 16:50.
Across the whole of Europe hundreds of innovative low carbon projects are underway. However, their overall impact is limited. The gap between individual grass roots projects and high level policy aspiration remains huge. The whole of this low carbon endeavour amounts to far less than the sum of its parts.
- Cities consume 78% of the world’s energy and produce 60% of its emissions.
- The developing world is urbanising rapidly
- Thus, cities are crucial to emission reductions efforts
There is a growing recognition among cities of the limitations of the traditional project approach and that the challenges which cities face requires a concerted drive for low carbon transition through systems innovation. An absolutely key policy task is to set out an approach that will remedy this shortcoming and help cities to chart a path for successful low carbon transition.
Climate-KIC is doing this by bringing together Birmingham, Bologna, Budapest, Castellon, Frankfurt, Modena, Wroclaw and Valencia in a pioneering programme. We focus on their projects in the three areas responsible for most CO2 emissions – buildings, energy and mobility; group their activities into clusters; and through network mapping develop a systemic understanding of how these projects relate to each other.
We promote experiments and pilots that enable cities to address gaps in provision; deepen their understanding and maximise their potential both in terms of learning from individual projects and then sharing these experiences. Crucially, this creates the context and opportunities for practitioners and stakeholders to scale-up their initiatives and develop more comprehensive, challenge-led demonstrator programmes.
Speakers:
- Fred Steward, Professor of Innovation and Sustainability, University of Westminster, London will present an overview of urban system thinking and indicate our pioneering work on transition network mapping.
- Jackie Homan. Sustainability Manager at Birmingham City Council will explain how the cluster mapping and system thinking helps the work of Birmingham’s Green Commission and how these approaches can be utilised more widely by other cities.
- Alice Bauer, Transitions Hub manager, Brussels will outline how Climate KIC has set up support mechanisms to promote transition thinking across Europe and indicate the case studies, courses and communities of practice which the Hub is offering in 2016.
Three short, focused presentations will be followed by questions and discussion.
Registration
If you would like to attend this event please register your details here. Due to our enhanced safety process and a high demand for places you will be entered on to a waiting list before approval. You can assist us in this process by providing your professional email where possible.
Please be aware that photo ID will be required for entry to all of our events.
If you would like more information please contact COP21@climate-kic.org.