VALENCIA REGION CONSOLIDATES ITS OWN LEADERSHIP IN TERMS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

15/12/2014

Notable Valencian participation in an international Mediterranean meeting about climate change through the Innovation Center of Climate Change of the Valencian Region of Climate-KIC, which is directed by the IVACE and the Valencian Region Community-European Region.

A meeting in Marseilles promoted by the Mediterranean Local Cities and Governments Commission and by the Conference of Maritime Peripheral Regions occurred this past Thursday 11^th of December.  Its goal was to involve the local and regional authorities of all of the Mediterranean agents that impact the climate to be able to transfer and to discuss the themes on which they will agree next year in Paris during the COP21.

The main role of the local and regional authorities in the fight against climate change policies is showed daily through actions carried out in terms of adaptation to the climate change, reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions in the fields of energy, transport, urban planning, residual management, etc.

COP21 is an opportunity for the Mediterranean regions to participate in the international negotiations about these issues and to raise the Mediterranean governments awareness about the Mediterranean’s vulnerability and about the impacts of climate change.

 Marseille’s event will certainly become a key factor with its own contributions. More than 200 representatives of the Mediterranean regional and local governments took part in the event. There, was presented Climate-KIC, the European initiative about climate change of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and the Office that accommodates this initiative in the Valencian Region.

The presentation of this European initiative as reference in the fight against the climate change interested a lot a big part of the participants, especially for the pragmatism and incorporation of this European initiative in the Climate Change strategy that is carried out by the Valencian Region, by interacting with all of the actors who participated in the innovation pyramid (education, research, business and public administration).

The Co-Director of the Climate-KIC Valencian office, Jose Luis Muñoz, emphasized during his speech that “it is necessary to create a new stage to approach climate change, where the innovation and the business view take a special role to create solutions and a new market that mitigate and help the territory adapting itself to the climate effects.” He also highlighted that “the big challenge of the climate change can be addressed if all the of areas and all of the actors of the innovation pyramid (education, research, business and public organisms) work together, through cooperation, to ensure these specific solutions at the local level.”

 Some cooperation proposals were identified during the Conference, not only with other European regions, but also with other Mediterranean countries.