NetZeroCities, the project to help cities achieve climate neutrality by 2030

Last 1st October 2021 EIT Climate Kick launched The NetZeroCities project to support Europe and in particular European cities to drastically cut down greenhouse gas emissions through climate action to achieve ‘climate neutrality’, one of the biggest challenges our societies face today.Climate neutrality ‘refers to the idea of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by balancing those emissions, so they are equal (or less than) the emissions that get removed through the planet’s natural absorption.

Cities are central to this goal, as they are centres of economic activity, knowledge generation, innovation and new technologies, and as they gather a large part of the European population.

The project will support up to 30 pilot cities to help drive rapid learning about how to achieve climate neutrality at the city scale. Cities will benefit from an intensive support relationship and dedicated services to achieve their net-zero goals.

The project will tailor advanced capabilities related to systemic change, citizen engagement and democratic governance, capital and financial structuring, and social innovation, to ensure cities have access to the best expertise available anywhere in the world.

Gathering 33 partners from 13 countries, NetZeroCities is coordinated by EIT Climate-KIC, Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on climate innovation to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid is one of the NetZeroCities partners to achieve this goal.