How do we engage citizens in the Valencia Climate Alliance?
Blogpost by Alevgul Sorman, researcher at BC3
Valencia, awarded the European Green Capital 2024 for its achievements towards climate neutrality, was one of our six cities for the Knowledge Brokerage training co-hosted by Fundacion València Clima i Energia and EnergyCities.
The Knowledge Brokerage Team – composed of Emilie, Carolina, Yann, Ananya and Gülfem (joining remotely) – were in Valencia on the 23rd and 24th of April of 2024 focusing on local climate strategies and understanding the panorama of citizens’ engagement in Valencia.
More specifically, the team paid attention to past and ongoing initiatives in Valencia such as My Neighbourhood in Transition, the GrowGreen Project in Ciutat Fallera implemented by Las Naves, the POWER UP Project on inclusive energy sharing models to fight energy poverty and empower citizens, and Energy Rehabilitation by Anthesis and Spaces for Encounter as spaces and infrastructures to connect, active and nurture a local Ecosystem for change.
By combining the structured dialogue of a World Café with the emotional resonance of storytelling, the team were able to actively listen and learn from success and challenge stories on how cities can better engage their citizens in climate action. Representatives from eight Mission Cities from Mannheim, Codema/Dublin, Porto, Valladolid, Ville de Lyon, Vilnius, Nantes Métropole to Bologna shared their climate initiatives, feel-good and resistance stories focusing on citizen engagement.
Synthesising all the information gathered before with interviews and during the workshop, the Valencia Team plans on developing a Citizen User Guide as a tool for the Municipality of Valencia to strengthen its citizen engagement alongside its many achievements as a Mission city paving the way to climate neutrality by 2030.
Alevgul Sorman is an Ikerbasque Research Associate working at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3)
This blog post is part of a series of reflections about our training events held in different European cities.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101069529 and from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant No 10038991].