18 new Hungarian members to the Covenant of Mayors
Energiaklub Climate Policy Institute assisted and supported 18 South Transdanubian municipalities in joining the Covenant of Mayors. The signature took place on 25th June 2013 in Pécs, on our joint event with the South Transdanubian Regional Development Agency (STRDA).
During the event, the mayors of Tab, Alsómocsolád, Bikal, Egyházaskozár, Gödre, Hosszúhetény, Magyarszék, Mindszentgodisa és Szászvár signed the document of membership along with Dr. Zsolt Páva, mayor of the city of Pécs. Eight municipalities join in the next weeks, nearly doubling the number of members from Hungary. After the signings, Energiaklub will elaborate the Sustainable Energy Action Plans together with the settlements, offering consultancy for the realization of the plans as well.
Local Sustainable Energy Action Plans are one of the most important keystones of future developments in the field of energy. Not many knows that for its 2014-2020 funds, the European Union has set conditions for the availability of certain energy development resources for municipalities. One of these conditions is the membership in the Covenant of Mayors which already has over 4700 members in Europe, but, until now, only 19 from Hungary.
Members of the Covenant are committed to reduce carbon emissions by at least 20% to foster the climate policy targets of the Union. Within a year after joining, member municipalities create Sustainable Energy Action Plans with measures to be taken, and realize them until 2020. Above others, action plans analyse heat and electricity consumption of municipal and private buildings, energy consumption of street-lighting and greenhouse gas emission of transport, and propose measures on how to reduce energy and fuel consumption.
The Covenant of Mayors is the mainstream European movement founded by the European Committee in 2008, involving local and regional authorities voluntarily commiting to increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewables on their territories. By their commitment, Covenant signatories aim to meet and exceed the European Union 20% CO2 reduction objective by 2020.
The event and the elaboration of the Action Plans were co-financed by the „Towards 100% RES rural communities”-project (Intelligent Energy Europe programme) managed by Energiaklub and the MANERGY project (CENTRAL EUROPE programme) coordinated by STRDA.
