Money, lots of money

’53 European cities get a combined €32 million for their transformation path to climate neutrality,’ is the headline on Innovation Origins at the beginning of March. I’ll drop in right away. That seems like a lot, but if you divide it by the 53 cities in twenty-one European countries invited to participate in the NetZeroCities Program, very little remains. And we, as Eindhoven, are joining as duo cities, together with Helmond. So we’re talking about two tons. With that, we can’t take big steps to reverse the climate crisis.

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In a weekly column, alternately written by Eveline van Zeeland, Derek Jan Fikkers, Eugène Franken, JP Kroeger, Katleen Gabriels, Bernd Maier-Leppla, Willemijn Brouwer, and Colinda de Beer, Innovation Origins tries to figure out what the future will look like. These columnists, sometimes joined by guest bloggers, all work in their own way to find solutions to the problems of our time. Here are all the previous installments.

So Eindhoven and Helmond are working together on the EU Mission Climate Neutral and Smart Cities. Its goal is to be climate neutral by 2030. Eindhoven and Helmond will receive support from the European Union to accelerate the reduction of CO2 emissions in both cities and thus contribute to a climate-neutral Europe in 2050. After the summer, we want to conclude a Climate Contract with partners in the city with concrete plans to achieve our goal.

So we are now in talks with the city, with experts, institutions, and companies that want to and can contribute to this. There is a lot of innovative brainpower in this region to develop concrete proposals. If it doesn’t work here, then nowhere. Residents are also invited to talk more during climate conferences. Themes we discuss there include themes such as different kinds of transport, consuming less, healthier food, less waste, nice neighborhoods, reusing things, and dealing differently with green and water. This is to maintain the livability in our growing cities in the face of a changing climate.

During the meetings with experts, many good ideas have already emerged about, for example, reducing waste, making business parks energy efficient, using sustainable forms of transport, greening the city, and reusing materials. For the talks with the city, I explicitly invited people who still have doubts about tackling the climate crisis. It is precisely those doubts that we want to know about. It must become a Climate Contract by and for all residents.

Besides money, regulations

Then back to the €32 million subsidy. We will not succeed with that amount, nor the multiple of that. If we want to realize our ambitions, we need not only money, a lot of money, but also better regulations to be able to take action. Dare to allow pilots, dare to give a region the confidence to try out innovations. Both Europe and the national government are responsible for this. Helmond and Eindhoven can take small steps, but not fast enough. If we want to implement the Climate Contract, there is not only work to be done in our region, but throughout Europe. The ideas are there, and the will is there in our cities, but as an alderman, you cannot make big steps without money and regulations. The steps are needed, and fast!