The Lisbon City Council approved yesterday the Climate Contract 2030, a municipal climate action plan that foresees an investment of 8.2 billion euros, proposed by the PSD/CDS-PP/IL leadership and made viable with the abstention of the left-wing parties.
The proposal for the Lisbon City Climate Contract 2030 (CCC Lisbon 2030), which still has to be submitted to the Municipal Assembly, was approved in a private meeting of the council, in the absence of the Chega councillor, who was not in the room at the time of the vote, with the abstention of PS, Livre, BE and PCP, an official municipal source told Lusa.
In a statement, the Lisbon City Hall (CML), which governs with an absolute majority after incorporating the Chega-elected member, indicated that “the CCC Lisbon 2030 is the main municipal instrument of climate action for the coming years and defines the vision, commitments, actions, and investments necessary to build a more sustainable, resilient and inclusive city.”
Recalling that this contract results from the European Union Mission “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030,” in which Lisbon was chosen from more than 370 European applications, the CML revealed that “the document gathers more than 600 commitments and about 150 actions of mitigation, adaptation and transversal transformation.”
“Taken as a whole, these measures estimate an investment exceeding 8.2 billion euros, which requires the commitment of various stakeholders and public and private actors,” the municipality added.
According to the CML, the contract aims to “reduce by at least 80% its greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2002,” reinforce the capacity to adapt and resilience to extreme climatic phenomena and “guarantee a fair and inclusive transition, combating inequalities and promoting social cohesion.”
Without revealing which concrete measures will be implemented, the municipality stressed that the CCC Lisbon 2030 is the fruit of “a broad participation process,” with representatives from academia, research centers and companies, as well as officials from the central administration, services and municipal companies, and there were also consultation sessions and co-creation workshops to integrate contributions from different sectors of society.
Cited in a statement, the president of CML, Carlos Moedas (PSD), said that “the commitment of this administration to carbon neutrality does not begin today; it is already visible in several concrete measures that are underway, in the electrification of public transport, in free passes, in strengthening the green structure and in delivering what is Europe’s largest climate adaptation project, the Lisbon General Drainage Plan,” assuring that it will continue “with concrete policies, making Lisbon a city increasingly more resilient and prepared.”
Justifying the abstention, the PS said that this document, besides suffering from a delay of more than two years, is “vague in its commitments and not very ambitious,” with measures “not very concrete and based on a fragile monitoring system that omits annual execution targets.”
“The limitations of the CML in responding to the recent heatwave prove that Lisbon cannot continue without structured planning,” stated the PS.
Acknowledging the importance of the CCC Lisbon 2030, “in a year in which the climate crisis expressed itself so brutally with the barrage of storms in January and the heat waves of July,” the BE’s board considered that this strategic document “makes the right diagnosis but does not present a real path,” failing to respond to the need to reduce car traffic and flights at Lisbon airport, leaving the city “with too many emissions and with little adaptation to climate change.”
“The plan does nothing more than cover the sun with a sieve,” criticized the BE, referring to measures that are already underway and that are being funded by entities external to the CML.
Meanwhile, the PCP said the contract has “deep inadequacies,” including the absence of calendarized targets, and justified the abstention with the “absence of more documents on this matter,” arguing that the climate plan “cannot be grounded in adaptation measures, but in measures to combat the worsening thermal imbalance in the city or, at least, in mitigation measures.”
The Livre pointed to a “lack of ambition” and the scarcity of measures to reduce carbon emissions and to mitigate their effects.
