Shaping green, sustainable and resilient urban areas in Europe by 2030

The 11th World Urban Forum, convened by UN Habitat on 26-30 June 2022 in Katowice will be a unique opportunity to bring together municipalities, cities, and regions, National governments, European and global institutions, as well as a wealth of civil society organisations, academics and businesses around a major issue: “Transforming our Cities for a Better Urban Future”. For the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), this event is an opportunity to gather local and regional elected representatives from the 60 national associations from 41 European countries. But most importantly, the WUF is a unique place to engage and foster a multi-level dialogue by bringing around the same table local, regional, national and European decision makers. Therefore, during this networking event, we invite all European stakeholders, at all levels, to gather and exchange on the future of European urban areas. In particular, climate change is one of the major challenges that will continue having impact on European cities, but it is also in the urban areas that we can find the solutions for more sustainable cities. The European Green Deal will be structural for European countries, and will also result in concrete investments at the local and regional level for greener more sustainable and resilient cities. In 2020, EU Member States adopted the New Leipzig Charter – The transformative power of cities for the common good. Beyond the Just and the Productive city, the third dimension is the Green city. However the current conflict in Ukraine results in increase in energy prices worldwide, and gives a whole new perspective on questions of energy autonomy, rapid development of green energies and risk of putting population in energy poverty. WUF11 will be the critical moment to assess how we delivered and how long is still the road ahead towards the Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives of the UN Urban Agenda. Therefore, we invite all European participants to the WUF to join CEMR for a networking political event on: • How to shape greener, more sustainable and more resilient transition urban areas in Europe by 2030? • What actions are needed and at which level (local/regional, national, European and global) to achieve net-zero emission urban areas? • Are we on the right track to achieve decarbonised societies by 2050? • How will municipalities and regions finance their green and just transition? • What are inspiring existing initiatives do we have in Europe? • How can the EU and European member states and cities keep ambitious climate goals when societies are impacted by increase of energy prices?