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Communities for Climate: Local action to respond to climate change
Climate change is no longer a distant threat but a pressing reality. Floods, fires, droughts, and the loss of biodiversity are impacting us, worldwide. In this context, citizens’ initiatives and local actions have demonstrated greater adaptability, innovation and faster recovery. Local citizens’ communities are making a lasting and decisive impact within their territories, bringing back the sense of human togetherness to the forefront of our lives.
To help the citizens’ community movement emerge and share their benefits across Europe, the European Commission is kick-starting the Communities for Climate – C4C pilot action.
Communities for Climate aim to harness the power of citizens-based local initiatives in response to the urgency of climate change by supporting local climate-related community projects, to empower these communities to become beacons for others, providing replicable examples and good practices locally to inspire broader change across Europe.
A call to select the 50 Communities for Climate projects is being launched to the attention of local communities committed to climate actions in the following areas: regenerating biodiversity, water management, local circular economies or renewable energy in urban or rural settings.
Benefits for the selected local communities include specialised expertise, peer-learning, customised study visits, mentoring and coaching, and visibility at European, national and local levels.
The place-based dimension is a key feature of the C4C initiative. The selected initiatives will be located in one of the eleven eligible EU countries: Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Sweden. Project ideas that foster a cross-border collaboration (i.e. between border regions) in tackling climate issues are encouraged.
The call is open for submissions until 21 April 2024 at 23:59 CEST.
The C4C initiative, funded by the European Commission, is led by AEIDL and composed of ECOLISE, REScoop.eu, DRIFT and an assortment of country and thematic experts.