Creating sustainable communities – A Decade of the Covenant of Mayors marked in Križevci

Twenty city mayors and representatives of local governments and expert institutions gathered together on that sunny morning of April the 13th in Križevci to talk about the Covenant of Mayors (CoM).

The principal reason was to have a joint overview or the first ten years since the Covenant of Mayors initiative has been established with a purpose to support European cities in their activities to mitigate climate change, to help them in creating activities that are meaningful, measurable and first of all – implemented. The role of cities in mitigating climate change is huge – urban areas are critical to support and to guide sustainable development of communities. That is why, since 2008, seventy Croatian cities joined the CoM initiative, which makes nearly half of Croatian population living in CoM cities. It is more than the EU average. Croatian CoM cities are part of the large network gathering more than 1000 cities in 30 countries, which share common challenges and opportunities. Goal is the same for all of them – to prepare and to implement Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) and Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) where they envision how to get to the CO2 emissions reduction by 40% by 2030 and how to adopt to the climate change impacts which cannot be avoided.