Rotterdam Goes For Green, is the new Green Agenda of the City of Rotterdam and a continuation of our previous Green Agenda that succeeded in adding 20 ha of green to the city. The new Green Agenda is a more bundled approach of the programmes Biodiversity, Climate Adaptation and Greening the Public Space. It strives for a holistic approach where also objectives for a more healthy and inclusive public space are envisioned, connecting to the ambitions of the social domain such as health and wellbeing through the programme Health and Inclusion, alongside Mobility.

Although the time frame of the policy instrument covers the period 2022-2026, our Green Agenda continues within our overall climate adaptation programme Rotterdam Weatherwise, ensuring that policy improvements will be realized beyond 2027 and further. The main objective of the policy instrument is adding 20 ha green to Rotterdam, both by the municipality and through neighbourhood initiatives. This objective is driven by the conviction that green adds values with relation to climate adaptation, biodiversity, an attractive environment for enterprises and citizens, social cohesion and health and wellbeing. The plan is structured around six strands. We will focus on the following 2:
- Green close to home: neighbourhood initiatives, greening schoolyards, collaborations with green stakeholders, green subsidies
- 15 Green blue squares: throughout the city different areas are prioritized to add green & waterstorage

The municipality of Murcia has developed a Climate Change Mitigation and Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (SECAP) set for the 2030 marker. Currently a greening strategy is developed that will be integrated in the SECAP (estimated in 2024). Murcia has done an extensive inventory of its emmissions and SECAP includes its action plans on tackling emissions, low-emissions areas. It attends to municipal buildings and residential buildings, local energy production, energy efficiency, heat/cold production, mobility, but also climate resilience, temperature rises, sustainable waste management, recovery of natural resources and water resources. It focuses also on circular economy, and above all raise awareness and inform the general public. With the addition of the greening strategy, SECAP also acknowledges and incorporates the essential aspect of urban greening as part of urban climate adaptation.

Murcia having certified the ISO 50001 Standard, and using the guidelines of the Covenant of Mayors, to which Murcia is subscribed, it provides the municipality with a roadmap to 2030. The objective is to reduce in 40% the emissions from our baseline year 2007.

The Ghent Green Structure Plan was approved by the City Council in February 2012. It demonstrates the physical lay out of our green structures, such as the location of parks, woodlands and open landscapes. It contains a number of green objectives for our city, putting forward that by 2030:

- every inhabitant of Ghent lives within a distance of less than 400m from a neighbourhood park (of at least 1 ha), and less than 150m from a green zone smaller than 1ha;
- residents must have access to one of the 5 ‘green poles’ (large, publicly accessible nature and woodland areas that are under development in the peri-urban areas) at a maximum of five kilometres from their home;
- for every inhabitant of Ghent 10 m² green zone needs to be provided;
- 8 green climate axes are connecting the city centre to the peri-urban areas;
- the surface of valuable nature zones must at least be kept up to the 1999 level and biodiversity needs to enhance;
- the woodland area must be drastically enlarged;
- the open landscapes in the peri-urban area must be preserved and enhanced.

The Green Structure Plan is an important tool for developing a coherent network of green areas across Ghent, not only for its inhabitants, but also for wildlife and biodiversity. The plan was used to develop the Climate Plan for the City, in which Ghent adopted the ambition of becoming a climate-neutral city, as well as “Space for Ghent” (2018), the new spatial structural vision 2030.

In order to deal with the important problems of the densely built-up territories of the metropolitan area of Athens, various interventions are foreseen in the selected policy instrument to deal with the problem of global warming, of the high level of carbon emissions and noise, serving the needs of promoting the principles of sustainable urban mobility and upgrading the quality of life in urban environment. The increase of green spaces, their quality upgrade, as well as the appropriate type of vegetation play an important role in shaping the environment of the metropolitan Region. The revitalization and reuse of environmentally degraded lands is deemed necessary.

Strategic objectives – characteristics and priorities of the Policy Instrument related with the project main focus are:
· dealing with the effects of climate change on the built/natural environment
and
· the protection/promotion of the natural environment and the improvement of the quality of the urban environment

The Policy Instrument can support investments that successfully combine the principles of sustainability, aesthetics and the participation of the New European Bauhaus initiative, with the aim of finding affordable, inclusive, sustainable, and attractive solutions to climate and green spaces challenges.

 

Katowice, due to numerous external and internal determinants in the climate crisis decided to update the "Development Strategy of the City of Katowice 2030 (DSCK)." The DSCK is in the process of drafting and currently in the phase of considering public consultations comments, with the resolution scheduled for adoption in June 2023.
The proposal of DSCK introduces a new strategic topic - Climate and urban ecosystem - that wasn’t included in the current strategy. Sustainable development policy, emphasizes improving the quality of life of residents regardless of the history and structure of the neighbourhood. The main purpose of the DSCK update is to take into account the changes the city faces after 2015. The most important, from our point of view, is the climate and the urban ecosystem - involving the creation of a healthy urban ecosystem. Among other things, the updated DSCK deals with directions for action in the environmental dimension, which include climate protection, a healthy urban ecosystem, climate and environmental awareness, sustainable production and consumption.
After adoption of the updated DSCK, further work is needed in the framework of the Strategic Field of Climate and Urban ecosystem to define concrete priorities, goals and activities to create the desired healthy, climate proof urban ecosystem. For this, Katowice intends to develop, as an extension of the DSCK, the Katowice Greening Strategy as an integrated climate and urban ecosystem implementation document.

The policy instrument is the Strategy for Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) of the city of Burgas. It is developed following the methodological guidelines of the Covenant of Mayors and the existing strategy documents and plans of Burgas Municipality in the fields of energy, energy efficiency, renewable sources of energy, environmental protection and climate action.
The policy instrument includes a detailed energy use and emissions inventory for 2020 and an analysis of the trends from 2005 to 2020. Based on those trends it includes a roadmap of how to achieve the goals for 2030 that Burgas Municipality has set (the same as those of the Covenant of Mayors):

• a reduction of GHG emissions by 40%
• a reduction in Energy use by 32.5% 
• and an increase in RES by 32%.

The document also analysis of the climate adaptation of the municipality and evaluation of the effect different climate change risk factors may have over different sectors of the municipality and its population.
The action plan includes a proposed list of measures and policies with indicative budgets and funding sources which will contribute to meeting the goals of the municipality in the areas of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.

The Tallinn 2035 Development Strategy is a policy instrument that proposes to unite the goals of Tallinn city establishments and companies, residents and citizens’ associations, neighbouring local governments, and the state. The document is divided into six strategic goals: 1) friendly urban space 2) creative global city 3) healthy mobility 4) green transformation 5) kind community and 6) home that includes the street. Tallinn assesses the efficiency of its policies through the achievement of these strategic goals.

In this project we focus specifically on strategic goals 6 “Home that includes the street” and 4 “green transformation”

The strategic goals set in the city's development strategy are generally detailed and implemented through the activities set forth in various specific development documents. The operational programme and budget strategy of the city's development strategy are prepared for a period of 4-5 years - the operational programme describes the paths and programmes for action towards achieving the strategic goals and the budget strategy is a financial plan for their implementation. Cross-sectoral horizontal development documents specify the strategic goals and provide specific guidelines for the preparation of area development plans. Such development documents are a roadmap for innovative solutions, the plan for sustainable energy economy, adaptation to climate change, and the development trends of circular economy and accessibility.