RSC project concludes with October conference in Cornwall, UK
By Nathan Johnson
The Regions for Sustainable Change (RSC) project held its final conference in Cornwall, UK on October 19-20. Titled "Showing the way to a low-carbon future for European regions", the event drew approximately 60 participants from participating regions and organisations from throughout Europe. The project will close officially on December 31, 2011. The main objective of the RSC project, which kicked off in 2008, was to develop new tools and methodologies to support European regions in making a shift towards a low-carbon economy. With a little more than three years to put the mechanism in place, the final conference provided an opportunity to learn from participating regions about their experiences with these new tools and methodologies, and to build momentum for their use in the future.
Global problems, regional solutions
In a keynote address to conference participants on October 19, Gottfried Lamers from the Austrian Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management drew attention to some of the most serious crises that the world faces today and in the foreseeable future: unabated financial crisis, resource shortages, climate change, external and internal population migrations, and ageing societies.
The fact that many of today's greatest problems are global in dimension does not rule out the viability of locally focused approaches to problem solving. Successful national or bloc-wide efforts can be hugely influential on the world stage where progressive policy is concerned, while municipal initiatives can often bring immediate benefits to citizens with comparatively few bureaucratic complications. On the other hand, regional approaches and results, as one might expect, largely depend on regional characteristics and needs. A region might be a merely geographical designation on a geopolitical map, or it might have historical roots that lie deeper than any national affiliation. In any case, a successful regional strategy can bring benefits to many people over wide territorial swathes, and can exert political influence at national level or even beyond.
The RSC project was based on a regional approach (as its name makes clear), and the 10 participating partner regions (from eight European countries) are fairly representative of the considerable variety to be found in regions throughout Europe-in terms of geography, population, size and economy. This variety was important from a project development point of view in that it served to provide a wide range of baseline data from which to create a comprehensive list of environmental indicators for measuring and evaluating current and future performance. Because of the nature of the RSC project, many new concepts and methodololgies were developed and tested at national level.
The hope, of course, is that national-level politicians and stakeholders will be attracted to and enlightened by positive regional-level project outcomes. In the bigger picture, Europe's environmental and economic situation will likely improve dramatically if several regions are able to develop in ways that promote long-term sustainability and energy autonomy. A region that is able to achieve energy independence, for example, is less susceptible to price shocks in the global fuel market. At the same time, a region that is able to create well-paying, permanent jobs can help contribute to national economic well-being, which in turn offsets, among other things, the difficulties of providing for the needs of a growing number of pensioners.
Waves of change
Cornwall, UK, host of the RSC final conference and one of the project partners, is a region looking to turn current economic challenges into new opportunities. Following the decline of its traditional mining and fishing industries, Cornwall has emerged, says Chris Ridgers of the Cornwall Council, as "the UK's premier holiday destination." This has been something of mixed blessing. Swelling tourism numbers have benefited some hotels and businesses and contributed to the rise of a surfing-related cottage industry, but relative income levels remain depressed whilst property values-especially along the beautiful coastline-have soared. As many full-time county residents struggle to meet rising energy costs, the development of cheaper, decentralised alternatives is a top priority for local government.
Fortunately, Cornwall has two renewable energy sources that are never in short supply: wind and water. According to Ridgers, Cornwall hopes to be able to develop wind turbines and tidal-or wave-based-energy in sufficient volume to make the region energy independent. In one optimistic scenario, the county will eventually supply end-of-line electricity to other clients by building the UK's first smart grid.
The RSC project outputs have helped the Cornwall Council to better understand what needs to be done in making a shift towards developing a low-carbon economy. Climate-friendly economic development is a relatively new development, and reliable information-especially at sub-national level-can be extremely difficult to obtain. RSC partner regions have been able to use the project outputs to conduct baseline assessments and map capacities for tackling emerging challenges. These regions are thus at an advantage in being ahead of what is actually a quite steep learning curve where policy and strategy are concerned.
Overcoming obstacles
One of the keys to successful low-carbon development is the ability to import and evaluate data. It then becomes a priority to present data results at the highest levels of policy making and programme financing in ways that are easy to interpret and understand. According to Damyana Stoynova from DG Climate Action, two-thirds of Europeans now view climate change as a very serious problem, and roughly 20 percent of EU expenditures are now related in one way or another to climate change-numbers which suggest sufficient concern and resources to implement programmes that deliver positive, verifiable results.
Nonetheless, several partner regions argued that a general lack of regional data can impede construction of an effective baseline analysis upon which to build a successful low-carbon development programme. Zoltan Kohan, a participant from VATI, a Hungarian public non-profit company focusing on regional and urban development, mentioned that while his country has a very good information system in place, development processes are often undermined by inadequate monitoring mechanisms.
Jiri Dusik from Integra Consulting Ltd. mentioned that strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can be a very useful tool for adding indicators to be monitored, while highlighting the need for local expertise. Adding that there is sometimes a detrimental overdependence on consultants, a three-way debate between SEA experts, ministry officials and consultancies can achieve superior results.
Meanwhile, some regions are bound to encounter problems of a more surprising nature. Robert Vella, Senior Planning Officer from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, recalled that start/stop funding for renewable energy technology (photovoltaic cell installation in this case) actually became unpopular among local service providers and retailers because of the sudden economic ups and downs within the sector.
In a presentation concerning the RSC pilot action of the Liguria region in Italy, Silvia Moggia related the difficulty of involving stakeholders in the project process, especially at adminstrative levels. Clearly, raising high-level awareness is crucial towards developing policies that can lead to successful implementation of regional low-carbon blueprints, she stressed. Silvia Lodato, representing the LaMoRo Development Agency in Italy's Piedmont region warned of an official tendency to underestimate risks connected to climate change, referring the the development of a set of guidelines for local authorities to raise awareness at such levels.
Learning to fly
Three other pilot actions took placed in Italy's Piedmont region (carried out by the LaMoRo Development Agency), in Hungary's North Great Plain region (undertaken by the University of Debrecen's Centre for Environmental Management and Policy) and Bulgaria (performed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works.
The primary focus of the Piedmont pilot action was the preparation of an important publication titled Climate Change and Strategic and Environmental Assessment: Guidelines for Local Authorities. Given that local authorities typically pursue sporadic actions, this publication is a user-friendly tool for addressing energy and climate change issues, and for integrating these issues within the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) aspect of local plans and programmes, especially where accessing possible funding is concerned. Given its mandatory nature, SEA documentation has greater potential for making policies more effective in reducing emissions over the medium and long term than do voluntary actions.
The Hungarian pilot action was highly complex and evaluative in nature. Because the North Great Plain region is highly vulnerable to climate change and underdeveloped economically, the pilot action studied existing regional development plans (i.e. operational programmes of the New Szechenyi Plan for 2011-2013), which were evaluated in cooperation with regional stakeholders using a specially developed matrix and the seven key issues detailed in the Regional Climate Confidence Index. The four plans evaluated were concerned with regional (spatial), environmental, transport and economic development.
The Bulgarian pilot action was concerned with a perceived lack of power and competencies of regional authorities to work with RSC project-developed methodology. The pilot action, carried out in October-November 2010, identified a key need for identifying, calculating and interpreting baseline data. Three thematic issues were selected for which baseline data will be applied with regard to future, region-level development strategies: per capita GHG emissions, GHG emissions intensity, and renewable energy. The key aspect of the pilot action was that it integrated the Regional Climate Confidence Index, developed by RSC, into the monitoring system of the regional development plans. It was from this study that the actual conclusions were drawn.
Looking forward
After the conference officially concluded, participants had the pleasure of visiting one of Cornwall's leading tourist attractions, the Eden Project. A model of ambition, planning and sustainability-and an aesthetic marvel-the visit provided a spark of inspiration for delegates soon to return to their various places of work and residence.
For the partner regions, the Regions for Sustainable Change project is now over; but the work of implementing of low-carbon actions is just beginning. The RSC project has enabled the participating regions take some difficult first steps, which will hopefully give them a competitive advantage and heightened visibility as they continue down this exciting, if yet uncertain, development path.
"We hope the project can be beneficial for other European regions as well, and we hope that they will use the project outputs for developing their own low-carbon vision, strategy and plans," says RSC project officer Dora Almassy. "The ideal way forward for the project would be an extensive use of the project tools and methods by other European regions outside the partnership."
