The seminar was organized by the Ministry of Climate and Environment, which in the current perspective of the EEA and Norwegian Grants acts as the Operator of the Environment, Energy and Climate Change Programme.

Mr Adam Guibourgé-Czetwertyński Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Climate and Environment hosted the event. Among participants we hosted The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to Poland – Anders Eide, presidents and mayors of cities, representatives of Programme Operators and beneficiaries implementing projects under the EEA Grants.

The theme of the event was climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities.

Urban climate policy with support of the EEA and Norway Grants

Operator representatives of EEA and Norway Grants talked about activities that are implemented in their Programmes. Participants had the opportunity to listen to inspiring presentations from:

• Piotr Bogusz, Poland – Environment, Energy and Climate Change Programme
• Susana Escária, Portugal – Environment, Climate Change and Low Carbon Economy Programme
• Petar Markov, Bulgaria – Environment Protection and Climate Change Programme
• Tomáš Tesař, Czech Republic – Environment, Ecosystems and Climate Change Programme
• Lovre Karamarko, Croatia – Energy and Climate Change Programme
• Denis Knotka, Republic of Slovakia – Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme

Challenges of urban climate policy

In the next part of the seminar, the ways of counteracting climate change in modern cities were discussed by: Magdalena Młochowska (City Hall of Warsaw), Wojciech Augustowski (Ministry of Climate and Environment), Bartłomiej Kozek (UNEP/GRID-Warszawa), Kamil Wieder (Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy) and Óttar Freyr Gíslason, (Icelandic Association of Local Authorities).

How to design a “City with Climate” – good practices

The next interesting part of the seminar, was speech of the Beneficiaries currently implementing projects in field of green-blue infrastructure in cities and the speech by the representative of Oslo, Norway which talked about adapting to climate change in capital of Norway.

Mayor of the city Wyszków - Grzegorz Nowosielski, talked about “Mitigating climate change and adapting to its effects in Wyszków” project and vice-president of Konin - Paweł Adamów presented “Green Urban Corridors - Climatic Awakening in Konin” project.

Director Ilona Gosk represented Sendzimir Foundation which implements 3 projects in Environment, Energy and Climate Change Programme: “Climate-friendly school. Model Centre for Urban Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Education”, “Between drought and flooding. Blue and green infrastructure in Lesna” and “Urban River Valleys Ecosystems". At the end of this part, Bent Braskerud, (Oslo City Council), announced the city's actions to combat climate change, following the rules created by the International Water Agency (IWA).

We invite you to learn more about other projects implemented under the Environment, Energy and Climate Change Programme which are available in the Internet Project Programme Database.

Financing climate policy

The issues of financial challenges faced by modern cities ran through all the discussions. Creating climate neutral cities would not be possible without financial support which includes EEA and Norway Grants, but also possibility of financing from other sources, which are to be available in coming years. For this part we invited Maria Śmietanka (Vice-director of National Focal Point in The National Centre for Research and Development), Robert Dzierzgwa, (Director of Department of Public-Private Partnerships in Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy), Piotr Czarnocki (Counselor in the European Funds Department in Ministry of Climate and Environment) and Marcin Jamiołkowski (National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management).

We would like to thank all participants for attendance! The video recording of our seminar is available on YouTube as well as presentations provided by the speakers.

See the seminar presentations below.

Editors