Our common Mission: collaboration for a resilient and climate-neutral future
26 June 14:30 - 15:45
Location: Sala José Iturbi
In the last few years, the European Commission has launched 5 Missions to advance research and innovation and face some of the major challenges of our time. Among them, the Mission for Smart and Climate-Neutral Cities and the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change put climate action at the centre, aiming to accelerate both climate mitigation and resilience in EU cities and regions. Although their specific objectives differ, these two Missions are strictly interconnected and complementary in accelerating the sustainable transition of European cities and regions.
Local and regional authorities are on the spot: the European Union, Member States, citizens, international organisations, academia and research centres, are all expecting them to take action in order to make the climate-neutral and resilient transition happen as soon as possible. As a result, on the one side, many stakeholders have mobilised to support cities and regions to make this possible; on the other hand, public administrations often feel overwhelmed by too many tools, too many platforms, too many options and too little coordination.
This session explores cross-Mission collaboration by analysing the compatibility of tools and frameworks provided by different Mission projects. Project partners will review the compatibility of their resources, while cities involved in both Missions will clarify challenges and opportunities for their use in implementing the climate-neutral and resilient transformation. Experiences from the Pathways2Resilience, MIP4ADAPT, NetZeroCities and UP2030 projects will be showcased. The session will aim to define concrete next steps to collaboratively work towards clearer cross-sectoral support to the MissionS’ cities and regions.
This session is part of the Enabling the transformation to resilient, adaptive and climate-neutral cities stream.
Speakers
Team Leader Adaptation to Climate Change Mission, European Commission (Belgium)
Irene Bonvissuto, Team Leader Adaptation to Climate Change Mission, European Commission
An environmental engineer as background, Irene leads the European Commission Team that implements the EU Adaptation to Climate Change Mission, bringing together resources from the Climate Action and the Research and Innovation departments. Before, she worked in the energy field, both on the policy side and on the programmes and projects implementation side, to increase renewable energies uptake in Europe and their effective integration of the renewable sources in the European electricity system.
Senior Adaptation Consultant, Ricardo Consulting (Spain)
Maria Ximena Michemberg Conti, Senior Adaptation Consultant, Ricardo Consulting
Ximena has over a decade of experience in climate change adaptation and stakeholder engagement. As a senior adaptation consultant, she is leading projects worldwide focusing on improving water access and sanitation, with recent projects in Bolivia emphasizing women-centered and nature-based solutions for water treatment. With expertise in multi-level governance, she has implemented national and sectorial adaptation plans in several countries, focusing on critical infrastructure. Currently, Ximena is part of the team delivering the Mission Implementation Platform (MIP4Adapt) for the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change. Under MIP4Adapt, Ximena leads the establishment and management of the EU Mission Adaptation Community of Practice- a platform facilitating knowledge sharing, good practice demonstration and promoting collaboration amongst its members.
Resilience & Sustainability Officer, City of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Stella Psaropoulou, Resilience & Sustainability Officer, City of Thessaloniki
Mrs Stella Psarropoulou is an officer at the Municipality of Thessaloniki for 19 years while the last (8) eight years, she works and manages the Resilient Thessaloniki office and since 2020 is the Deputy Chief Resilience Officer. She has been project team member of a number of European funded projects such as the Horizon2020 Food Trails project and UP2030 project alongside she is team member working for Thessaloniki’s participation in EU Mission for Climate Neutrality and Mission Adaptation and focal point for international and European partnerships and platforms (RCN, ICLEI, Eurocities etc). Her background is in Financial Studies, she holds a Master’s degree in “European Integration & Governance”, University of Macedonia, Greece and a second Master’s degree in “Spatial Planning for Sustainable and Resilient Urban Development”, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Faculty School, Greece where she also started her PhD research on the localization of the SDGs.
Senior Advisor Climate Neutral and Resilient Regions & Pathways2Resilience Coordinator, EIT Climate-KIC
Thomas Koetz, Senior Advisor Climate Neutral and Resilient Regions & Pathways2Resilience Coordinator, EIT Climate-KIC
Dr. Thomas Koetz is Senior Advisor for Climate Neutral and Resilient Regions at EIT Climate-KIC responsible for orchestrating the application of a systems innovation approach for transformations towards climate neutrality and resilience at regional scale, demonstrating that fast and system level change is possible. Currently, he is coordinator of the Pathways2Resilience project, a flagship project under the EU Mission Adaptation supporting 150 regions to become climate resilient. Thomas has worked for over a decade as Programme and Policy Officer in environmental public policy for the European Commission and the United Nations, having been centrally involved in establishing the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which he served as Head of Work Programme. He has worked on issues such as climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development, rural development, and multilevel governance, and has a PhD and background in science-policy interfaces, and Master degrees in ecological economics, and in landscape ecology and environmental management.
EU policy advisor for R&I, Energy & Climate, Normandy Region (France)
Zoe Buyle-Bodin, EU policy advisor for R&I, Energy & Climate, Normandy Region
Zoe Buyle-Bodin is EU policy advisor in charge of Research & Innovation, Climate Action and Energy portfolios at the Brussels office of Normandie Region. Member of the Horizon Europe Climate & Energy NCP team, she is also coleading the ERRIN/European Regions Research & Innovation Network Adaptation Task Force. She holds a master’s degree in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lille and a MA in European Political and Governance Studies from the College of Europe.
Deputy Head of Unit “Strategy, policy coordination and urban transitions” Directorate General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
Wiebke Pankauke, Deputy Head of Unit “Strategy, policy coordination and urban transitions” Directorate General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
Wiebke coordinates the European Commission’s cross-sectoral team implementing the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. The Mission’s goals are to support 100 cities in becoming climate-neutral by 2030 and to turn these cities into innovation and experimentation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050. Before joining the Commission’s research and innovation department in 2021, Wiebke worked on transport and internal market issues in the Commission and before that as a newspaper journalist in Germany.
Program Director, NetZeroCities
Thomas Osdoba, Program Director, NetZeroCities
Moderator
Expert, Resilience and Climate Adaptation, ICLEI Europe
LUCA ARBAU, Expert, RESILIENCE AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION, ICLEI EUROPE
Luca Arbau is an architect and a sustainable urban development practitioner. He is ICLEI Europe's representative in Brussels from the resilience and climate adaptation team. He is involved in the implementation of the EU Mission on Adaptation and the Covenant of Mayors - Europe's pillar on adaptation. He is a key organiser of the annual European Urban Resilience Forum. He holds a master's degree in international cooperation and emergency architecture from the International University of Catalonia (Spain) and a master's degree in architecture from the University of Ferrara (Italy).