Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Barcelona led a group of 6 cities (Warsaw, Seattle, Paris, London, Buenos Aires and Salvador), in the framework of the C40 network, to exchange experiences on the fight against energy poverty, the participation of vulnerable groups in a fair energy transition and the building of community resilience to extreme temperatures. Barcelona played host to the ICA Academy with this group of cities on 16, 17 and 18 May, to delve deeper into these challenges and share Barcelona’s best practices.

A welcoming from the Councillor for Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition, Eloi Badia, opened the Academy, during which a speech was also given by the Director of the Climate Change and Sustainability Office at Barcelona City Council, Irma Ventayol. Presentations from representatives of various cities focused on projects and initiatives for tackling energy poverty and moving on from global action to local action.

Participants were able to visit a project, on the second day, for renovating a High-Complexity Property in El Bon Pastor, and learn about the Neighbourhood Plan. The rest of the day saw cities sharing several experiences on how to provide support in energy transitions to communities at risk.

The central issue on the Academy’s third and final day was fair energy transitions and the building of community resilience to the crisis. Participants visited a climate-shelter school (Els Llorers) and the Sant Antoni Superblock.

Taking part were Barcelona City Council representatives not just from the Climate Change and Sustainability Office but also from the Barcelona Energy Agency, the Department for Resilience, the Barcelona Public Health Agency and Social Rights.

Representatives of the various cities involved in this meeting took the opportunity to see at first hand the projects and programmes that Barcelona had implemented, such as the network of climate-shelter spaces, the work being carried out with professionals from the home-care service and with the Energy Advice Points, the improvements made to thermal comfort in old people’s residences, projects for health and climate, for promoting renewable energies in the city and so on.

Representatives from the various cities took part in knowledge exchanges and strengthened their technical skills through a work group and by listening to other technical experts from the various cities.

Participants left this Academy inspired with new ideas on their abilities and roles when it came to developing fair local-level energy transitions and helping to build the resilience of their communities to crises.

 Barcelona and the C40 Network

Mayor Ada Colau was appointed the European Vice Chair of the C40 Steering Committee in July 2021. C40 is a network made up of close to 100 cities focusing on the fight against climate change and on running urban initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks and improve the health, well-being and economic opportunities of city residents.

C40’s member cities represent 700 million people and a quarter of the world’s economy. Barcelona’s leadership in the face of the climate crisis was confirmed with this appointed, which strengthened the Catalan capital’s international role. The mayors of C40 Cities have been showing their determination, through collaboration and innovation, to comply with the Paris Agreement signed up to by States in 2015: to limit the planet’s global working and build healthy, fair and more resilient communities.

The aim behind this collaboration with the C40 network, under the Global Green New Deal pilot project in Barcelona is to help with improving resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, understood as the condition that makes certain groups of people less capable of adapting themselves to the effects of climate change, whether because of their social-economic status (family income, living conditions, strenuous physical activities in the street), condition (gender, age, loneliness) or state of health (limited independence, chronic illness etc.,) taking on the challenges of energy poverty and unsuitable thermal comfort in homes.

Barcelona led a group of 6 cities (Warsaw, Seattle, Paris, London, Buenos Aires and Salvador) to exchange experiences on the fight against energy poverty, the participation of vulnerable groups in a fair energy transition and the building of community resilience to extreme temperatures. Barcelona played host to the ICA Academy with this group of cities in May 2022, to delve deeper into these challenges and share Barcelona’s best practices.

The Academy for an Inclusive Climate Action

Collaborative work was started between Barcelona, Warsaw, Buenos Aires, London, Salvador, Paris and Seattle in 2021, in the framework of the C40 network, which resulted in a face-to-face meeting in Barcelona on 16, 17 and 18 May.

This collaboration involved active participation in knowledge-exchange sessions, right from the start, between the seven cities. The issues dealt with during these knowledge-exchange sessions included topics such as giving support to the most vulnerable and front-line communities, meeting their energy demands, making the transition to cleaner sources and building resilience to extreme winter and summer temperatures.

Barcelona is tackling the climate emergency

Given the challenges posed by the climate emergency, Barcelona is taking measures to reduce emissions but also to adapt to the effects the city is already experiencing and will increasingly experience. Barcelona, a proactive city that has been comprehensively tackling climate change and assuming its responsibility over its contribution to the problem, able to find opportunities in difficulties and smartly adapting to new climate conditions, and all that while generating co-benefits for the people and socio-economic activity.

It is here that we in Barcelona have an ambitious Plan. The Barcelona Emergency Climate Action Plan sets a target for cutting emissions down to 50% by 2030, compared to the figures for 1992. The intermediate 2030 target ought to allow us to make a break with the current consumption and emission dynamics and reach 2050 with neutral values. Other targets that have been incorporated are the total elimination of energy poverty, increasing our solar-energy facilities five-fold and renovating more than 20% of buildings that are over 40 years old.

The plan aims to provide a comprehensive view of the measures for tackling climate change, so we can meet the goals of the new Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy signed by Barcelona City Council.

Climate justice

Poverty and inequality reduce the human capacity for tackling climate change, as most options for adaptation depend on resources. Droughts, floods, heatwaves and other consequences of climate change having more impact on those less capable of anticipating risks and later recovering from harm.

Climate change is unfair, even in Barcelona. Barcelona’s population is especially vulnerable to climate change, given its geographical location in the Mediterranean, its considerably ageing population and its very high percentage of people in an energy-poverty situation. Hence the need for implementing climate adaptation and justice measures, in addition to reducing emissions. The challenges for tackling climate change are not just dependent on the protection and restoration of ecosystems, change of energy sources and adaptation of economic activities for reducing their impact on the environment. They also depend on the strengthening of social justice, the reduction of inequalities and poverty and the guarantee of decent livelihoods for the entire population.

The unequal impact of climate change in Barcelona

Climate change affects our health and quality of life but not everyone in the same way. Factors such as physical condition, health, age and gender as well as the socio-economic situation and environmental conditions we live and work in determine the extent that climate change can affect individuals.

The impact of climate change also varies according to city district, as it depends on such factors as state of buildings, presence and type of plants, percentage of impermeable surfaces, urban density, dispersal of heat sources and socio-economic conditions. The highest daytime temperatures recorded in Barcelona are in Les Corts, Eixample Esquerra, Nou Barris and Ciutat Vella, whereas the areas with the lowest temperatures are close to the coast, mitigated by the regulatory effect of the sea. Even so, the situation reverses during the night, with the highest recorded temperatures being along the coast.

Heatwaves and extreme temperatures have negative effects on people’s health and, above all, on groups most vulnerable to suffering the consequences of high temperatures, such as: people with chronic illnesses; people with health problems, typically respiratory diseases such as asthma; people taking medication that acts on their central nervous system; pregnant women; people with physical and/or learning disabilities who have limited mobility and little capacity for self-care; the elderly; newborns and young children; people living in precarious social conditions; and members of workforces continually exposed to the sun. Reducing heatwaves, especially for the most vulnerable groups, is therefore becoming an important public-health and climate-justice challenge.

On the other hand, 24% of households in Barcelona are estimated to be at risk of energy poverty, especially in the city’s underprivileged districts, where there is a high percentage of people at risk of residential exclusion, as well as a larger proportion of unemployment and low-quality and inefficient housing. According to the Barcelona Public Health Agency, energy poverty affects a higher proportion of women and people born in countries with medium-low income levels. As for territorial distribution, there is a greater level of energy poverty in the districts of Ciutat Vella, Sants-Montjuïc and Nou Barris.

Inclusive climate initiatives implemented in the city

Aiming to improve the resilience of the city and, above all, the most vulnerable communities to climate change, Barcelona City Council is working to ensure the continuity of services and universal access to basic supplies, guarantee thermal comfort not just inside buildings but also in public spaces, and improve and adapt services for the most vulnerable.

• Climate-shelter spaces network

The climate-shelter spaces network puts several municipal facilities and green spaces at the disposal of city residents as shelter from high temperatures.

These facilities (which maintain their regular activity) may be indoors, such as libraries, sports centres, community centres, schools; or outdoors, in green spaces, such as urban parks with a certain preponderance of plants and aquatic elements. All these facilities are accessible for people with reduced mobility and provide water and a place to sit in. Further information can be found from the Network’s website.

• Training in energy poverty and climate resilience for people taking care of others

We’ve designed a specific training course for care and home-assistance providers, to promote knowledge and skills for identifying situations of hidden energy poverty and unsuitable thermal comfort in the homes of dependent individuals. That way care and home-assistance providers can act directly or refer to individuals offering services such as Energy Advice Points (PAEs). Home-Assistance Service and VilaVeïna professionals and volunteers from programmes such as Radars have been able to take part in this.

A facilitation guide has likewise been prepared, aimed at care-provider organisations so they can apply the training to their teams of professionals and volunteers.

What is more, these three videos, aimed at both providers and receivers of care, are resuming their key ideas of the content of the training.

• Strengthening Energy Advice Points

Barcelona has Energy Advice Points (PAEs) at its disposal, distributed throughout its districts, offering information to the entire population on how to reduce bills, improve energy efficiency at home and on the financial aid available for this purpose or for incorporating solar-energy facilities in buildings. In some cases it has been acting to prevent supplies of basic services from being cut.

The Climate Change and Sustainability Office has developed training for strengthening PAEs so they can offer information and advice to users on these issues relating to climate change:

• • Productive roofs (green, allotment, reservoir and energy roofs)
  • Housing renovation (energy efficiency)
  • Preventing heat-related health risks

• Diagnosing thermal comfort in old people’s homes and residences for people with disabilities

Barcelona is a city with a considerably ageing population (21.3% of its residents are over the age of 65), and old populations are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as they are more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses and a limited capacity for adapting quickly to their environments and/or environments to keep themselves cool.

Old people living in residences can also be affected by heatwaves. Bearing in mind that old people spend a large part of their time inside buildings, their exposure to heat is regulated largely by their interior environments. As for poorly designed buildings, ineffective thermal management and divergent needs and preferences among staff and residents may contribute towards greater exposure to heat with harmful consequences for the health of the more vulnerable residents.

Barcelona City Council has launched a line of work, in collaboration with the Government of Catalonia, which is aimed at finding out about the current reality of these spaces regarding thermal comfort.