The city-region of Greater Manchester is made up of ten local councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) and the Mayor. Known as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), it works together with other partners and local services on issues that affect everyone in the region, such as the environment, transport, regeneration, and attracting investment.
The Dutch government aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 49% compared to 1990 by 2030. This includes the objective to get 1.5 million households off the natural gas grid. The responsibility for this has been allocated to the municipalities. The Drechtsteden, with just short of 300,000 residents, is a small region of seven cooperating municipalities. In order to reduce households’ dependence on fossil gas, several municipalities have begun to construct heat networks using waste incineration, geothermal and aquathermal energy.
Fifteen years ago, the Bulgarian town of Burgas was extremely energy inefficient, leading to very high energy costs for local authorities and citizens, as well as poor living conditions and environmental inequality. Today it is a different story. Burgas is a smart, energy efficient city implementing the most up-to-date energy approaches and measures, thereby demonstrating the power of local authorities to drive sustainable change.
Komotini is a municipality in north-eastern Greece with just under 60,000 inhabitants. Still recovering from the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 and dealing with the resulting financial restrictions, the municipality is now planning to take its energy supply into its own hands. With an impressive track record of active citizenship and a fruitful cooperation between the administration and residents, there are high chances that these plans will soon be put into practice.
The metropolitan area of Porto consists of 17 municipalities in northern Portugal which are home to 1.7 million people. Its Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) from 2012, drawn up as part of its membership of the Covenant of Mayors initiative, defines its goals as follows: compared to the 2005 baseline, CO2 emissions will be reduced by 25% in 2020, while energy efficiency is expected to increase by 20%. Additionally, renewable energy sources are anticipated to grow by 30%.[i] Like many other local SEAPs, these targets go way beyond the targets set by the European Commission. In order to reach them, the 17 municipalities work together with local agencies to initiate an energy transition steered by public institutions.