Despite setbacks faced in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of C4S municipalities are nearing completion of their Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans. Latvian municipalities Tukums and Kegums have already completed their SECAPs, while those developed by Spanish municipalities Murcia and Las Torres de Cotillas are already online. Most of the remaining municipalities from Italy, France, Hungary, Germany and Croatia are targeting completion between September and October 2020.

An additional municipality, the small town of Vrsar on the coast of Croatia, has been supported by consultant and Compete4SECAP partner DOOR to conduct a Risk and Vulnerability Assessment – a key element of establishing an adaptation baseline – using knowledge gained at a C4S peer-to-peer training session in May 2019.

While the 31 C4S municipalities already have Sustainable Energy Action Plans in place, they are called on to upgrade these in order to meet more ambitious emissions reduction targets, and to incorporate climate adaptation actions into plans that were previously heavily-focused on climate mitigation. C4S partners supporting municipalities cite a range of challenges: skills and capacity gaps, data unavailability or inaccessibility (e.g. climate projections at local level needed to accurately assess climate risks), difficulties coordinating input from various departments; some of which have been compounded by the new constraints imposed by Covid-19 restrictions. To support them, and other municipal staff needing help getting started, we’ve developed a quick access guide to upgrading from SEAP to SECAP.

We’re looking forward to congratulating the C4S municipalities on completing their upgrade from SEAP to SECAP!