Fifty-three cities from across twenty-one European Union and Horizon 2020 Associated Countries have been invited to embark upon unprecedented climate action, through the NetZeroCities Pilot Cities Programme managed by the Mission Platform of the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities (EU Cities Mission). These Pilot Cities are setting the urban climate transition on a new trajectory. They will implement systemic and locally designed innovative actions that span multiple areas, from buildings to waste, and levers of change, including governance, finance and policy.
Pilot Cities will experiment with new ways to rapidly decarbonise over the course of a two-year programme. Selected from a wide array of 103 applications involving 159 cities from 33 countries across the European Union and Horizon 2020 Associated Countries, each of the Pilot Cities will be a proving ground for taking systemic, inclusive, and multi-lever approaches to transforming city systems. Over their two-year journey, cities will reflect and learn as they go, providing opportunities for other cities to follow in their footsteps, replicating and/or scaling approaches and solutions relevant to their context.