Regions for Climate Protection: toward Governance, from Knowledge to Action
In the global context of fighting against climate change, the European Union has committed itself to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020. The main decisions are taken at the European and national levels but the results have to be achieved in the field. The regional and local levels have therefore a crucial role to play. The starting point of the project is a study on greenhouse gas monitoring methodologies in EU regions carried out in September 2006 by some of the project partners. To go further, the objective of the project is to improve the capacity of regions to build and apply greenhouse gases reduction policies, in order to contribute to climate protection.

The main objective brings in 2 more specific objectives:
> enable regions to efficiently monitor and observe greenhouse gases
> develop regional policies for greenhouse gas mitigation using good governance processes (governance being defined in par.2.1.2)
As part of the project, we also plan to strenghten the dialogue between regions and the EU on climate change policies and their implementation in particular through the Committee of the Regions.

The partnership of the project gathers 11 complementary partners representing 9 Regions (out of which 4 are supported by their regional agency) and 1 international association of energy agencies and regions , with a balanced coverage of the EU Member States from a political and geographical point of view.

The three knowledge areas that will be developed by partners and shared as part of the project are: 1) monitoring and observing greenhouse gases, 2) developing regional policies and action plans for greenhouse gas mitigation, 3) implementing strong regional governance. The project will elaborate assessment methodologies and produce manuals on the three areas, based on the exchange of experience on best practices that can then be used by policy makers.
More regions will be able to benefit from the work done in the project, through the project webportal and other dissemination activities.

The outputs of the project will include identifying best practices on regional climate change policies, addressing climate protection regional policies and preparing implementation plans on regional climate change policies. The project will allow to transfer successfully best practices, to improve regional climate change policies, to increase the capacity of the staff members of the partner regions and to create a network of regional greenhouse gas observatories as a standing working group within an existing network of regions and energy agencies (FEDARENE). In the short-term, the project will enable regions to set up greenhouse gas observatories, develop efficient climate change policies and use regional governance processes to do so. In the medium term, it is expected that greenhouse gas emissions will be significantly reduced.