Local climate action: New handbook with practical tips and hints for Polish municipalities

Poland and Germany are central players in European climate policy. In particular, their municipalities and businesses play a decisive role in the implementation of low emission strategies. A new practical handbook will support Polish municipalities in the transition to a low-emission economy.

As part of the National Climate Initiative in Germany, almost 3,000 municipalities are involved in efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions via the development of local climate mitigation strategies. In Poland, more than 800 municipalities have already applied for resources for the development of low-emission strategies. In both countries, municipalities are making progress in climate policy and are already providing a central contribution to the success of the EU’s ambitious climate and energy policy.

Polish municipalities are about to get their hands on a new tool; the recently published "A Low-Emission Economy Starts with Municipalities: A Handbook for Polish Municipalities" is specially tailored to their situation and presents more than 20 examples of successful local climate action measures as inspiration for their own projects. The handbook is the result of a large project on German-Polish collaboration on low-emission strategies which was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).

For local economies, climate mitigation measures are cost-effective and profitable

The goal of the handbook was to determine as precisely as possible what information Polish municipalities need and to address these needs in a targeted way. To this end, readers such as representatives of Polish municipalities will find detailed information and practical tips on how to finance their own projects, how to collaborate with the private sector, how to get local stakeholders involved and how to plan for a low-emission economy. The authors of the handbook show in various stages that the implementation of climate mitigation measures are cost-effective and can be profitable for the local economy to boot. Climate Mitigation in Spite of Tight Budgets, a German handbook put together by adelphi in 2013 as part of the NKI, served as a template for this manual.

In addition to the handbook, adelphi developed a training concept, orientated around the topics covered in the handbook and addressing municipalities thus identified needs in a targeted way. The training concept is designed to support representatives from municipal administrations in the development of the necessary abilities and capacities. With the goal of initiating further climate action activities, encouraging collaborative learning and honouring particularly innovative projects, a competition between Polish municipalities was also developed as part of the project.

The project was conducted by adelphi in collaboration with the National Polish Energy Agency (KAPE), the Polish employer’s federation Lewitan and the Federation of German Industries (BDI), funded by BMUB via the Advisory Assistance Programme and supervised by BMUB and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA).

For further information go to www.low-emission-project.de.