Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy – Europe

The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (CoM) is the world’s largest movement for local climate and energy actions.

CoM brings together local and regional authorities voluntarily committing to implementing the EU’s climate and energy objectives on their territory. This unique bottom-up movement, which started in 2008 with the support of the European Commission, now counts over 10.000 signatories.

Participating cities and municipalities endorse a shared vision for 2050: accelerating the decarbonisation of their territories, strengthening their capacity to adapt to unavoidable climate change impacts, and allowing their citizens to access secure, sustainable and affordable energy.

They also pledge action to support the implementation of the EU 55% greenhouse gas-reduction target by 2030 and the adoption of a joint approach to tackling mitigation and adaptation to climate change, as well as energy poverty. In order to translate their political commitment into practical measures and projects, Covenant cities commit to submit and regularly monitor a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP).

The Covenant of Mayors – Europe (CoM – Europe) is part of the Global Covenant of Mayors, a global initiative born by the huge success of the CoM, supported by 11 Regional Secretariat (Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, SouthEast Asia, Oceania, Middle East and North Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, USA, Canada, Latin America & The Caribbean).

FEDARENE is part of the consortium running the Covenant of Mayors – Europe Office, together with 5 other European networks of local and regional authorities: Energy Cities, Climate Alliance, Eurocities, CEMR and ICLEI Europe; and one ICT company: Akaryon.

FEDARENE participates in the definition of the strategy and policy behind the initiative and has been actively involved in mobilising regions and energy agencies around Europe, through promotion, continuous helpdesk, capacity building events, conferences, and release of CoM-related publications and exchange of best practices.

The Covenant of Mayors – Europe lays its success on a multi-level governance approach. Provinces, Regions and Energy Agencies play a key role in the initiative, acting as CoM Coordinators or Supporters. They provide strategic guidance and technical support to the municipalities in their region for the development of sustainable energy and climate action plans. They also organize territorial capacity building events to build municipalities’ competences on adaptation, mitigation, energy poverty and finance.

Did you know that the Covenant has its own song too?