Climate action
The following is a description of the most important actions related to sustainability:
Citizens' Climate Assembly (2022)
The Citizens’ Climate Assembly is a deliberative process involving 100 people between the ages of 16 and 75 to discuss the city’s climate emergency situation. It will define actions and solutions to improve it by answering the question: What can we do to deal with the climate emergency?
The aim of this deliberative assembly is to outline the municipal policies in the three areas chosen by the participants to tackle the climate crisis in the city of Barcelona.
Extended Climate Emergency Committee (2022)
In 2022, the Climate Emergency Committee expanded to include more organisations and citizens under the name of the Citizens' Climate Assembly - Citizen Sustainability Council Work Group, and set up three participatory sessions to share the progress and barriers to tackling the emergency and accelerate action.
The following topics were discussed at the sessions: Energy model, Food model, Mobility model, Cultural and educational model, Consumption and waste model, Urban model, Caring for water and green areas and Inequalities.
Climate Emergency Committee debate on the extension of the airport (2021)
On 16 September 2021, an extraordinary session of the Climate Emergency Committee was held, which called for participation and involvement in the debate on the city's major infrastructures in fulfilment of the commitments made in the Barcelona Climate Emergency Declaration. The event was attended by around 200 participants, in a hybrid format, both in person and online, and was chaired by the Mayor of Barcelona.
One of the issues discussed was the status of the city's major infrastructures in general and the El Prat de Llobregat airport in particular.
For more information, please see: Press release from Barcelona City Council, News from Betevé, Climate Emergency Committee debate on the extension of the airport (2021).
Climate Emergency Action Plan (2021-2030)
In November 2021, this Plan was presented as the outcome of two years’ experience implementing the Climate Plan, a climate emergency declaration and the reflections resulting from the COVID-19 global health crisis. This is an urgent action plan, which boosts the ambition of the Climate Plan, accelerates it and appeals to other administrations.
The strategic axes on which the Climate Emergency Action Plan is based are: mitigation, adaptation, climate justice and the promotion of citizen action.
Barcelona Climate Emergency Declaration 2020
On 15 January 2020, Barcelona declared a climate emergency and warned that if nothing is done, Barcelona and the planet will become uninhabitable for future generations. To avoid this and to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis in the city, Barcelona City Council has declared a climate emergency with an action plan funded with 563 million euros to carry out 100 measures with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 1992 levels and reducing CO₂ emissions by two million tonnes.
You can find all the latest news on climate change in the city on the Barcelona Climate Commitment website..
Climate Emergency Committee (July - December 2019)
On 10 July 2019 the Climate Emergency Committee was presented and a co-creation process was launched in which more than 200 organisations from the Barcelona More Sustainable Network collaborated in four thematic sessions. The aim of the Committee was to draw up the contents of the Barcelona Climate Emergency Declaration.
For more information on the Climate Emergency Committee.
The Climate Plan 2018-2030
The Climate Plan aims to be an integrated vision of the measures to tackle climate change, which will enable the objectives of the new Covenant of Mayors for Energy and Climate that Barcelona City Council has signed to be achieved.
The climate emergency has a specific plan in Barcelona, the Climate Plan 2018-2030, whose four main axes are mitigation, adaptation, citizen action and climate justice. This plan was developed through a co-production process with the More Sustainable Barcelona Network and city residents, and it was unveiled in April 2018.
For more information on the Climate Plan:
Climate subsidies (2018-present)
In July 2018, the Climate Plan launched a series of climate subsidies aligned with the plan’s objectives that aim to provide support and financial resources to citizen projects that promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the city’s adaptation to climate change or climate justice through actions on energy saving, energy efficiency and increasing the use of renewable energies, sustainable mobility, etc.
Barcelona's Climate Commitment 2015 (COP-21)
In November 2015, the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-21) took place in Paris. It was ratified by China, the United States and the EU countries. The main objective agreed to was to keep global warming below 2 °C.
Barcelona City Council and the members of the More Sustainable Barcelona Network have drawn up a framework document, Barcelona’s Climate Commitment, which aims to be a short-term roadmap.
