Barcelona reaffirms its climate agreement to be a climate neutral smart city by 2030 with an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions during this decade. This is one of the main points in the Barcelona + Sostenible 2024-2034 commitment, a document produced with organisations and individuals to speed up the decarbonisation of the city and make it a leader in the fight against climate change.

The new Barcelona + Sostenible commitment represents the global challenge on a local scale.. Cities are essential for finding effective solutions so that the places we live in are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The new commitment sets out some priority areas for work in Barcelona, the climate emergency, loss of biodiversity, planetary health and people’s health, access to housing and more.

The Citizen Agreement for a More Sustainable Barcelona 2024-2034 is the third commitment to be signed and follows on from the previous two, the first signed in 2002 and the second in 2012, supported by 2,000 organisations which are now renewing their support. The agreement was drafted collaboratively and is the result of a thorough analysis and extensive participatory process. This preliminary stage was carried out in 2022 and 2023 with the overall participation of 868 organisations and individuals in the collective creation of the document now being signed, with 178 new contributions. This method also consolidates Barcelona as a leading city in participatory processes. The document was approved unanimously by Barcelona City Council’s City Assembly for Sustainability on 7 May.

City challenges: decarbonisation and saving water

The signing of the new commitment sees the city backing a new working model of city challenges, which mainly revolve around decarbonisation and saving water.

In terms of decarbonisation, the goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030, at a rate of 15% per year (or equivalent). Adherence to this challenge means taking on the commitment to make more progress in decarbonisation, ensuring the transparency of results and promoting collective learning.

In the sphere of improving water management and savings, one of the goals is to achieve 90 litres of domestic consumption per inhabitant per day, a reduction of 15% in commercial and industrial use and 10% in municipal uses.

The Barcelona + Sostenible network

The Barcelona + Sostenible network is a set of people and organisations with a city commitment to sustainability, collectively working to build a city responsible with people and the surroundings. The network is made up of citizen organisations, business and commercial organisations, schools, universities, professional colleges, trade unions and administrations, while individual members of the public have now also joined.

The network drives measures on sustainability, shares good practice and develops collaboration projects between its members. It is represented by the Citizen Council for Sustainability, a regulated consultation body to drive and monitor environmental and climate policies in the city.