Padua Carbon Neutral by 2030: Climate City Contract presented to the European Commission

On 14 September 2024, the Municipality of Padua submitted to the European Commission the Climate City Contract Action Plan, a strategic document in which the actions to be implemented to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions within the urban territory to zero are identified, with quantification of the expected reductions, the time schedule and the related financial plan.

The document is the result of a series of steps that saw Padua selected in 2022 as one of the 100 pilot cities that will strive for climate neutrality by 2030. Since then, the city has been committed to working on the construction of a pathway that, rooted in the Paesc – Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan, would define the coordinated and participatory strategy needed to achieve this important goal.

The presentation of the text to the European Commission is therefore a very important step for the success of Padua’s decarbonisation strategy, thus continuing the city’s collective commitment summarised in the ‘Padua 2030’ project, of which the University is one of the main stakeholders together with 35 other local public and private entities, and finalised in the so-called Climate Agreements, one of the three parts into which the Climate City Contract is divided.

The document is currently under evaluation: the European Commission now has one month to make an initial assessment and possibly ask for revisions. After that, starting on 15 October, the evaluation on the merits will begin, which will take about four months.

The Climate Agreements, as well as the entire Plan, are not to be considered a document crystallised in time. In the years to come it will be possible to add new actions and new signatories to the Padua Climate City Contract in order to strengthen the synergies of the territory and the whole strategy.

For more information visit the dedicated page of the Municipality of Padua.