Feedback from the ground on the Covenant of Mayors implementation in Austria June 2013 Prepared by Climate Alliance Austria Contact: Friedrich Hofer, friedrich.hofer[a]klimabuendnis.at CONTENTS National context ........................................................................................................ 3 The Covenant of Mayors in Austria ........................................................................ 4 The national Covenant Club’s strategy ........................................................................................... 4 Participating actors ........................................................................................................................... 4 Meetings, workshops and activities organised .............................................................................. 5 Events where the national Covenant Club has been presented ................................................... 5 Particularities ..................................................................................................................................... 5 The Covenant of Mayors in Austria: Evaluation of the questionnaires and experiences gained in the framework of the Covenant Club ................................ 6 Perception of the Covenant by politicians / by civil servants ...................................................... 6 Barriers and drivers for cities to join the Covenant ...................................................................... 6 General Recommendations concerning Covenant implementation in the country ................... 6 Feedback from Covenant Actors ............................................................................ 8 Abbreviations: CoM: Covenant of Mayors CoMO: Covenant of Mayors Office SEAP: Sustainable Energy Action Plan BEI: Baseline Emissions Inventory LAs: Local Authorities The sole responsibility for the content of this report lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Feedback from the ground on the Covenant of Mayors implementation in Austria – 2 NATIONAL CONTEXT Existing similar initiatives Since the initial report in January 2012 not much has changed in Austria: there are still several similar climate protection initiatives for municipalities and cities. Climate Alliance Austria (943 participating municipalities in June 2013) and the “e5”-programme (the Austrian programme of the European Energy Award - 138 participating municipalities in June 2013) are still the most popular climate protection initiatives at national level. The number of Climate and Energy Model Regions (“Climate and Energy pilot regions” in the initial report) in Austria has increased to 106 regions (June 2013, now representing a population of 2.5 mio. people and covering more than 1.100 municipalities),, and for 2013 there is another call for motivating further municipalities to create new Climate and Energy Model Regions. For further information, see: http://www.klimaundenergiemodellregionen.at. klima:aktiv, the Climate Protection initiative of the Ministry for the Environment in Austria has also improved its service for municipalities: http://www.klimaaktiv.at/gemeinden.html. Generally speaking the situation for promoting the Covenant of Mayors and motivating municipalities to join the CoM has not become easier during the project in Austria. National political situation The national Climate strategy is coordinated by the ministry of the environment. With its programme “klima:aktiv”, launched in 2004, the ministry of the environment tries to achieve the Climate protection goals. Moreover the “Klima- and Energiefonds” has been created in 2007 and by the end of 2012 more than 57.000 climate protection projects have been funded out of this fund with a total budget of 740 mio. Euro. In 2011 the Austrian government enacted the Austrian Climate Protection Act in order to regulate the CO2-reduction duties between the national and the provincial level. Moreover in April 2013 the Austrian government enacted the National Climate Change Adaption Strategy. Despite all these efforts the CO2-emissions in Austria have still been increasing in the last years and Austria has failed to achieve the Kyoto-target. Number of signatories (13.6.2013): 16 Bleiburg, Bregenz, Gabersdorf, Gleisdorf, Judenburg, Klagenfurt, Lassee, Laxenburg, Ottenschlag, Saalfelden, Schwaz, Vienna Wolfurt and Munderfing on the „hold" Ottenschlag, Grafenschlag and Kirchschlag under (Waldviertler Kernland) group of municipalities – other municipalities of Waldviertler Kernland hopefully will join in the next months Despite of the difficult situation in Austria we are very happy that Vienna (1.7 Mio. inhabitants) joined the Covenant of Mayors in October 2012, after strong lobbying activities together with Climate Alliance. Number of Supporting Structures (13.6.2013): 2 Alliance in the Alps Climate Alliance Austria Feedback from the ground on the Covenant of Mayors implementation in Austria – 3 THE COVENANT OF MAYORS IN AUSTRIA The national Covenant Club’s strategy The Austrian national Club’s strategy was explained quite elaborately in the initial report, so I would like to focus on the adaptations, changes and difficulties of implementing the strategy. The main target of the Club was and is to provide a platform for the exchange of experience among the Covenant signatories. The networking platform meetings proved to be a good method to gather representatives of CoM-signatories for the exchange of experience and for supporting CoM-signatories in their duties to elaborate their SEAPs and BEIs: all six networking platform meetings were well visited, although Austria has just 16 signatories at the moment. We also tried to implement the challenging task of linking all the relevant initiatives in Austria with the CoM – with varying success: what worked out very well was to combine the networking platform meetings with other events like the meeting of the managers of the Climate and Energy Model Regions or the annual conferences of Climate Alliance Austria, where we could inform lots of mayors about the Covenant of Mayors initiative in addition to the networking platform meeting. In order to provide a professional CoM-service for all cities and municipalities in Austria and to fulfil the duties as a CoM-Supporting structure Climate Alliance Austria recruited Georg Priesner as the national expert for the Covenant of Mayors in Austria in January 2012. He has visited so far four Climate Protection Coordinators of the Austrian provinces so far (Styria, Vienna, the Tyrol, Vorarlberg) in order to present and promote the CoM in the provinces and to link the CoM with regional initiatives. The goal would be to convince the regional governments to support the CoM financially and with capacity building activities in their provinces and finally to become Covenant Coordinators. Moreover we organised two internal CoM-capacity building workshops for the 9 general managers of the regional offices of Climate Alliance Austria in order to inform them on the latest news and about the CoM and to instruct them about the best arguments for joining the CoM. One more target of the Club was and still is to attract new cities and municipalities to join the CoM, which has proved to be a very difficult task. However we are confident to be able to welcome some new signatories from Austria this year as we have heard about some interested mayors in some municipalities during our last events where we promoted the CoM. Finally I have to point out that it is quite difficult to build a Club with 16 signatories in a country, that’s why we still focus on promoting the CoM in order to gain new signatories. Participating actors Representatives of CoM-signatories, mainly the civil servants of the municipalities, very few mayors themselves Representatives from local and regional energy agencies as well as the regional energy agencies of the provinces and the national energy agency, as these organisations support or could support CoM-signatories in elaborating their SEAPs Coordinators of the e5-programme as they working closely together with municipalities in the fields of energy efficiency and RES Representatives of the Kommunalkredit Public Consulting as they are responsible for the operation of the financial incentives for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy projects Representatives of the regional offices of Climate Alliance Austria 106 Managers of the Austrian Climate and Energy Model Regions, for whom the training programme is organised by Climate Alliance Austria Feedback from the ground on the Covenant of Mayors implementation in Austria – 4 Meetings, workshops and activities organised Organised so far: 6 networking platform meetings held so far o 30th of November, 2011, Vienna o 18th/19th of April, 2012, Hall o 4th/5th of October, 2012, Mariazell o 27th of February, 2013, Zeltweg o 20th/21st of March, 2013, Bad Aussee o 28th/29th of May, 2013, Hartberg 3 Internal capacity building workshops o 5th/6th of December, 2011, Wels o 11th/12th of December, 2012, Goldegg o 11th of March, 2013, Vienna 1 excursion o 19th of September, 2012, Judenburg (excursion) o 2 technical workshops in Ottenschlag (Waldviertler Kernland) o 4 participatory meetings involving citizens and regional actors (Waldviertler Kernland) Upcoming activities until the end of the project: July, CoM workshop in