Lazaros Maloutas, the mayor of Kozani, participated as a speaker at the 6th Conference of the European Just Transition Platform, analyzing Kozani’s strategy for achieving climate neutrality by 2030.

The conference was organized by the European Commission and took place from the 24th to the 26th of October 2022, in Brussels.

Mr. Maloutas was a speaker in the section “Climate Neutral Cities in Transition”, with

• Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment,

• Balbina Gluza-Czyczerska, Coordinator of the Just Transition Platform of the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission

• Janet Ågren, deputy mayor of Umeå, Sweden

• Iztok Mori, Director of the Municipality of Velenje, Slovenia

• Carsten Rothballer, secretary of the Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition

• Roman Mendle, Coordinator – Climate Neutrality, Circular Economy and Smart Cities, ICLEI Europe Network

As part of the discussion, there was an exchange of views and experiences on the just transition process among stakeholders from national, local and regional authorities, as well as from economic and social partners, the society and also representatives from the European Commission. Among them, Commissioners Elisa Ferreira and Kadri Simson.

In his intervention, Mr. Maloutas referred to the challenges the region faces due to de-carbonization, the initiatives taken by the Municipality of Kozani, and also the strategic priorities it has set for 2030. “Our goal is for Kozani to become a National Innovation and Sustainability Hub”, underlined the mayor of Kozani.

Mr. Maloutas referred to the Public-Private Partnership projects amounting to 80 million euros that are to be implemented in the Municipality, the Energy Community that has been created but also the 6 MW photovoltaic park to meet the needs of the Municipality. Also the Municipality’s wider initiatives for energy, the Center for Technology Dissemination, as well as the “smart” strategy followed by the implementation of “smart” applications.

The European Commission launched the EU mission to achieve climate neutrality by 100 European cities by 2030. In light of this ambitious goal, professionals from cities of various sizes and origins shared examples and talked about their next steps to inspire the transition process.

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