Abstract:

Cities function as complex metabolisms influenced by numerous interrelated factors including climate change, urban mobility, energy sustainability, water, public health, security, social innovation, and inclusion. Within these dynamic systems, carbon emissions are distributed unevenly, disproportionately impacting socioeconomically deprived areas. These neighborhoods typically experience higher population densities, elevated traffic congestion, and a scarcity of green spaces compared to wealthier urban districts. This spatial inequality exacerbates environmental injustices, underscoring the urgent need for integrated decarbonization and energy strategies that simultaneously address social and environmental dimensions to promote equitable urban sustainability.

This work presents DivAirCity’s capacity-building programme to empower vulnerable citizen groups in the definition of future green cities, allowing city officials, planners, and policymakers to design and implement natural-based solutions as a means for city´s decarbonization and sustainable energy development. Participants learn how to identify, prioritize, and scale nature-based solutions (NBS) that contribute to inclusivity, energy sustainability, climate mitigation, adaptation.

This European training initiative has been co-designed with five European cities: Aarhus (DK), Bucharest (RO), Castelló (ES), Orvieto (IT) and Potsdam (DE), and has been piloted with the participation of 16 cities worldwide in the framework of the H2020 European project DivAirCity.

The main goal of DivAirCity´s training city program is to:
The training methodology is based on three main pillars: People-to-People, Project-to-Project, and City-to-City.
- People-to-People: The Community of Practices (CoP) created in each pilot city worked together exchanging different knowledge, including the experimental knowledge of the citizens in the intervention areas.
- Project-to-Project: Activities with other ongoing Research and Innovation (R&I) projects operating in the same field took place with the objective of sharing results and learning from each other.
- City-to-City: European and non-EU cities were actively engaged, knowledge exchange and mentoring activities were set up aiming to share knowledge and support each other city, their city councils, and the Covenant of Mayors.

Keywords:

Decarbonisation, energy, DivAirCity, Natural based-solutions, training, cities, Horizon 2020.