The EU
ambition for climate neutrality is supported by decided legislative and
financial efforts that are intimately linked with the recovery from the COVID
crisis. The Council , the Commission and the German presidency are giving steps
towards the 'new normality'.
The
response to the current crisis will result in a reprioritisation of the Green
Deal: the views of Local and Regional Authorities on this has to be kept into
consideration, as they have been the first responders to the crisis and will be
at the forefront of the recovery, having the ultimate responsibility of finding
the right balance and synergies between economic priorities and environmental
and climate protection.
There is
a need for the Green Deal to go local, in order to:
- ensure
that each and any local and regional community can find its green
transformation formula, capable of facing the impact of climate change;
- guarantee
a territorially cohesive and socially just transition, where no region and
no individual is left behind;
- provide
the concrete tools (finance, regulation, governance) capable of rapidly
empowering the partnerships between the regional and local governments and
the socio-economic actors.
The
inputs to this questionnaire will feed into the ENVE commission's opinion
"The impact of climate change on regions: an assessment of the
European Green Deal" that follows the referral from the German
Presidency of the Council. The objective of the study is to explore the
potentials and shortcomings of the Green Deal as actually designed to respond
to the climate crisis, from a local and regional point of view, also with a
view to the current circumstances, as impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The
study should take into account the feasibility of Green Deal measures and
objectives from a local and regional perspective, keeping in line with the
principle of proportionality. The study should focus in particular on:
- The potential
need for reprioritisation of Green Deal components due to the
post-pandemic recovery, also based on the impact assessment of the
revision of the 2030 EU target plan.
- The role of Green
Oath and sustainability mainstreaming for the success of the Green Deal.
- The SDGs as a
tool for monitoring the successful implementation of the Green Deal.
- The suggested
pace and strategy of implementation of Green Deal tools (including Next
Generation EU) in order to align the socio-economic and climate-related
elements of the Green Recovery.
- The existing best
practices in the field of integrated actions targeting climate neutrality
Please
answer before October 23, 2020.