The article explains that the goal of Urban Klima 2050 “is to implement the Basque Country Climate Change Strategy – KLIMA 2050 – in the urban context”. It also highlights its drive to “climate governance at all administrative levels through the development of action plans linked to the strategy as well as the integration of climate change into various sectoral policies such as land use and urban planning, health, water resources management and energy”.

Climate Chance also notes “the deployment of ambitious climate actions in the region such as the application of organic farming, the renaturalisation of a dam, the creation of an urban wetland and a flooded forest” among the various actions planned during the project's six-year duration.

The Basque Country redefines its roadmap to 2050

The article also highlights the Basque Government's effort to redefine its roadmap to 2050 in the face of the changing international context of climate change, "to integrate the concept of energy transition as well as adaptation and mitigation", included in the Basque Country Climate Change Strategy – Klima 2050. In this sense, it emphasises that the Basque Country is making progress on two main components, the strategy to 2030 with specific lines of action, aligned with the recently launched 2021-2024 Basque Country Energy Transition and Climate Change Plan and the new roadmap to 2050 and a parallel legislative process to approve the new Basque Energy Transition and Climate Change Law.

About LIFE IP Urban Klima 2050

The largest climate action project in the Basque Country will transform the Basque region by coordinating a total of 40 climate change mitigation and adaptation actions in the 2019-2025 period. It is led by the public company Ihobe, part of the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment, which works together with some 20 organisations, including two other areas of the Basque Government (the Department of Health and the Directorate of Ports and Maritime Affairs), the three provincial councils, the city councils of Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Donostia/San Sebastián, Bakio, Bermeo, Gernika-Lumo and Zarautz, two Basque Government public companies (EVE and URA), as well as technology and research centres (AZTI, BC3, Neiker, Tecnalia and Tecnun) and the Naturklima foundation.

With a budget of 19.8 million euros, it will facilitate the effective deployment of the Basque Country's Climate Change Strategy, Klima 2050, at the urban level.