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It probably sounds familiar: “We'll never be able to realize everything in the climate plan of our municipality with the means we have ... ”. Not applicable to you? Good! 🙌 Then you don't have to read the article anymore... (although we do recommend it) 😉.
"Will I be able to realize our climate plan?" 🤔
Do you recognize this thought? You're not alone, we actually hear it quite often. And it's true. With the resources that cities and towns have available today, they probably won't succeed.
We know that municipalities and towns in Flanders spend between 50 eurocents and 20 euro per inhabitant per year on their climate plans. Not to be pessimistic, but that amount has to go to about 1.000 euros per inhabitant per year for society to get (and stay) on the climate transition path.
To be clear : those 1.000 euros must come from private individuals, financiers, companies and governments together, not just from your city or municipality. It's not all extra money, it's mostly about money that would otherwise be spent on the purchase of, for example, a conventional car or the infrastructure of our energy system. Ideally, this money should go to a bicycle, public transport or green energy.
Advantages of climate plans 👍
Why should you still make climate plans when the gap is so wide with realistic actions?
✅ Well, first of all, cities and municipalities need to know which concrete actions have the most impact. Both in terms of CO2 reduction and euros. In this way, the resources of municipalities can be used as efficiently as possible. You can only do this with a long term vision.
✅ Secondly, the city can use the climate plan to appeal to citizens, businesses, financiers and higher authorities and to involve them in projects that respond to the challenges of the climate plan. All these parties are needed to initiate a systemic transition!
The local authority as a facilitator 🤜
The above is our advice to you : continue to focus on those concrete actions and successes and as a municipality or city take on a role as facilitator to help realise larger scalable projects with different partners.
By doing so, your municipality will stay in motion and attractive to your residents. This in turn allows the elected representatives to score, which will allow you to keep on doing what you're doing.
Do you have a particular question, concern or experience about this? Share this in the FutureproofedCities community! Because what you give is what you get, right? It's worth the try. 👍
☀️FutureproofedCities makes it easy to plan, organise and keep track of concrete climate measures. These measures can also be linked to concrete actions, so that you know where to start and what to focus on. 🙌
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