 Okay thank you so we're ready to go. Well hello good evening everyone. First of all I would like to thank you all for being here with us this evening and secondly and most important I hope that you're all okay you and your loved ones and as you know we'll be presenting a webinar in the cities as areas of hope but it's a transnational project of the Green European Foundation and there we have amongst other institutions different found green foundations in different European states Croatia Turkey Belgium Spain our friends from Equal and the North hooded Horizons Foundation that is organizing this webinar I'll simply make a brief explanation of this project and I'll show you how we are going to structure our webinar as you know we have four speakers of high high level Janet Sanz Deputy Mayor Vice Mayor of the City Controversy nuclear you met from the association of local authorities head speaking about Tiananmenchens and you can theater of strategies and operations of the mayor so another big organization of local administrations and strategy Campillo the Vice Mayor Deputy Mayor of the City of Valencia today's webinar will include their explanations so they should be 10 12 minutes maximum he froze out there he is so well we'll be here interpreting everything in the last 15 minutes or so we'll have time for a Q&A session and that well that they can answer so before we start some logistic issues you have a small icon to choose either Spanish to listen to Spanish for the participants who speak Spanish no Catalan today we have many people from the rest of Spanish state so you also have it in English you will have two or three chats that will be in English and two for sure in Spanish you will see me you will see the speakers this is possible thanks to three people that cannot be seen here Sandra Cruz the person in charge of the now New Horizons Foundation Alphonse he's the magician behind the scenes and Giaoma you're surely the interpreter for doing simultaneous interpreting since I'm sure this is a time to you know see we have more people on December 10th let me tell you we have another project that we're New Horizons Foundation participants in we'll have a webinar the address we're talking dealing with sustainable tourism and tourism after COVID-19 well with therefore Jojo let me say that this project is a traditional project trying to identify the best practice or the good practices that green people are doing in different cities and countries and towns and you're beyond where the different foundations represent that you come from in order to underscore and disseminate the best practices in our cities oftentimes they still clash with many policies that the governments are sometimes undertaking governments that are so-called progressive governments or self-called progressive governments take care of the elderly and environmental issues etc in that framework I believe it's good to organize this webinar address to see how cities ruled governed managed by green people are still working hard and they will still have to face this pandemic when they thought that this could be a briefer uh as I would no further ado I would like to give the floor to uh Janet South a good friend of mine she is the deputy mayor of urban affairs and many other things of the city of Barcelona Janet you have the floor thank you Sergio first of all I would like to thank the new horizons foundation the and the green european foundation and all the participants in this event for being able to share the different strategies of the work that we've been doing from different fronts in order to guarantee hope in those cities that are being reinvented considering the common challenges we all have to face all over the world affecting our citizenship that's strategy we have goes from eco strategies underscoring life and biodiversity making our cities healthy cities and it's a true pleasure and a privilege to be able to share a screen with you claire and the susanna said well you name it and to be able to to share the strategies I mentioned let me introduce what we are now doing in Barcelona and from Barcelona it's a relevant thing considering those different looks and that they're trying to be continuing with the same policies that things should stay the same nothing should change not using the the opportunities that a very severe situation has generated that is impacting us as cities and I believe that we are all aware of the fact of the importance that transformation of the first stones of public spaces is one of the areas that could be most important to build new solutions while facing this three triple crisis that we have healthcare crisis a climate change crisis and an economic crisis that right now is impacting us very specifically but that we had been suffering for for some years ago pollution contamination climate change you name it in the different moments with economic crisis that have been overlapped nearly and in Barcelona we're doing so for and we've been doing so for quite a long time under a new idea sustainable city after the development of an urban planning that is eco friendly let me focus on some data that are relevant and that we all share from different standpoints Barcelona right now is the European city with the highest car density in Europe as I said 6000 per square kilometer if compared with London density goes down to 2000 cars or 3000 in in Paris per square kilometer square kilometer so we had to act in the public space in order to observe new and different opportunities so that the cities are not just at rest using cars the importance this has for energy model for the healthcare model to be able to breathe a clean clean air Barcelona has over 50 percent of the public space some areas it's above 70 percent and 80 percent that are devoted not only to traffic and also to parking so streets are for cars so that they move around and so that they park majoritarily this is the case in Barcelona and this has a direct effect on our health state because over 1000 people die every year because of the effects of air contamination so from Barcelona with these three terrible such terrible figures we are now trying to work on a global strategy to be able to build a model that observes a different public space we we need to be healthier with less noise less contamination safer less accidents urban highways are over those elements of streets that I'll go that allow you to cross the city from end to end very quickly we want a safe speed we also want to strengthen the social relationship and the life in neighborhoods where we have supported recuperation projects of public space better community life the elderly who live on their own find a place where they share their their lives together fostering proximity trade Jane Jacobs told us in that gorgeous book called life and death in big cities where proximity trade generates a community life safety these are they are the eyes the merchants are the eyes in the proximity trade trading and a model that observes the needs of those groups that have been constantly excluded from urban planning such as children the elderly you name it all this has to be accompanied by a strengthening clear strengthening strategy with respect to public transportation supporting the fact of urban sustainable urban mobility biking walking tramways buses as the the vertebrating excesses we have created these strategic projects of the whole of Barcelona we would like to reach all neighborhoods with a very very symbolic set of actions in the sort of that mesh work which is a very characteristic urban design designed in the 19th century and that we would now would like to adapt to the 21st century the need to redefine the streets for the 21st century and it's the called the super block streets and squares that we need in the 21st century it's a success model that we have supported in in different areas highly accepted whatever it was implemented with a high international prestige because it entails an innovative transformation in the shapes with a tactic urban urban planning with participative processes that are very intense involving the whole of the community and it's a model that we are observing and that we would like to generate a quantum leap the super block of Barcelona the big project for the whole of the city it's a project that goes beyond four-year legislation it has a long scope transforming what is temporary into something permanent observing something that is a win-win situation so that areas that are that are occupied by certain vehicles can be distributed so that other things can happen that is the model that we are observing for the rest of the city and that now we would like to expand so that we can connect it to link it with all these strategic plans with the climate emergency plan that we supported last year where we determined that the co2 reduction very very ambitious projects and a new urban mobility plan with a drastic reduction in the year 2024 or 25 percent of cars moving around the city of Barcelona and therefore the model is that if the a shambla this the Sardin mesh work something which is well it's part of the 19th and 20th century structure the super block is the new trademark of the 21st century the proposal we have and that we should start working on well we actually did start working on on it but this should be specified into specifying 21 new green axis that at 23 kilometers so that you have an idea it's like three times diagonal street and we have to change the structural streets that connect from end to end and that entail the street transformation into green axis we are supporting together with all that in the intersections of a new opportunity we're generating new new squares 2000 square meters each square in the intersection of streets we're right now we only see cars parked parked in in the corners or cars moving around and changing directions so all that change this new look will mean adding squares where children can play where we can generate daily spaces that also generate new new forms of trade and this transformation involves adding more space for people that walk pedestrians approximately we're speaking about over 33 hectares which is like the citadel park I don't know if you know it but it's it's our urban lung it's it's a big park well it's like you know instead of having cars we have trees but distributed in different areas of the city while incorporating in a structured city not something very specific not a cosmetic change we had to add green areas well planted green areas they will eliminate asphalt we will eliminate asphalt in those axes and we will add green areas that look good and that allows the city to be more permeable gathering the resources that we already have this means that one of every three streets of our expansion our eschambla will be a green axis this will create the new city that we believe will be greener and healthier it's a green transformation that observes change the use of cars with the use of new urban life healthier and more fair model we have implemented two public contests tendering projects that are on you know are being deployed that will determine how the streets look like all this project should be or should the possibility to act in only not these 22 exits and squares but to do everything based on that goal because this will be added to the infrastructure project we have for the rest of the city that we are developing connection of the tramway in the diagonal street which means the transformation of diagonal street plus an axis going from the the mountain to the sea be a la yetana going you know in the old times from the sea to the in the hinterland sort of speaking so we will draft all the projects and we will be able to update our proposal up with new streets with respect to the new identity Barcelona has a long-standing tradition well it's a very well designed city we have integrated our cultural heritage so we can feel that in the streets of Barcelona but we also need to adapt all this to the 21st century so all this should be combined with more miglades more public transportation more infrastructures more transport infrastructure that allow us to connect the metropolitan city with three and a half million inhabitants with the economic core of the city the city itself we are defending a model a city model where the only opponent is air pollution that kills us this is climate change this makes us more fragile more vulnerable and in a context where we felt that that frailty from this world pandemic we have to act more more quickly we have to be more agile citizens request that and this comes from the transformation from from a forgotten our transformation sorry because this is part of the work we are doing with our neighbors because this is addressed to protect life to protect the quality of life you know no one should leave the city then because of a health problem problem and also we have to be able to to understand that we don't have a B planet and we'll have a B city but I should survive beyond our lives with a good quality this is the project that I wanted to convey to all of you and to share with you this is the central project of Barcelona and maybe later in during the Q&A session we could deepen into all this thank you very much thank you Jeanette because of the huge amount of information that you have condensed and squeezed into a few minutes and I think that you all follow the media these policies are not only courageous but they are also submitted well under under a crossfire from different types and conditions because it seems like it's more severe to talk about certain things than talking about cars cars you know go beyond any rational thought as many of you already know but it is not the same to have small initiatives than the big and solid policy that the Barcelona City Council has been following in the last four years but definitely in this legislation you guys are taking giant steps because Jeanette is pulling from from the wagon many of you have realized that Susanne Riege hasn't been able to connect with us she's had a technical problem nothing to do with Giaoma or the foundation or whatever well it's a life problem and she only had that slot in her agenda she said in that what's a message thank you on behalf of the Green European Foundation for your participation and I would like to also she would like to also thank those of you who are participating in this seminar well following our script we have Claire who met who as I said before is the executive director as much as you see this and it's a pleasure for me to to be able to introduce her clear you have the floor thank you I'll try to speak Spanish it should be better to generate a debate so that we understand what to say language I believe that the first thing after thanking the foundation for organizing this debate which I believe is extremely necessary is to say that for me who I will speak go well I'm defending a network of cities that are not green or or not all of them green I wish I wish all of them were green but I believe that all of them are cities that are on the right track of energy transition and this has been so for many years so I've seen that precisely when cities already had a very advanced plan with a long-standing strategy for many years won't progress very much whenever they had to face a crisis like the COVID-19 crisis so I will only complement what was said by Jeanette and I will not talk much about what cities do now because no one else is better placed than Sergei and Jeanette to explain their experiences and their their words are worth many analysis but what I have seen from our standpoint in our position is that cities that who had a quite clear vision who knew that in fact there is no other planet no B planet as she said well cities that had already started working in in the sense of getting as close as possible to a climate neutrality well these cities had a huge advantage on how to correctly react considering the crisis why well because the crisis acted as a snapshot or as a photography we have a developer before we had in the old times we had to develop pictures it looked like a well a blurry future it couldn't be we couldn't follow the what we were doing but the snapshot has is a digital snapshot no development needed no debates we only have one planet in terms of climate change in terms of resources soil water resources air well you know the whole story is over I mean the virus that has that sees no borders has been the developing agent of our borders which is the earth before we used to argue about this but the image is so clear now so digital it's been a boost an enormous booth boost for debate and for what we have always tried to do and to present on on the negotiating table it's not just a crisis a crisis it's a great at Hamburg it's the work of decades the activists that have done the right job is not just one person one organization it's the joint work we are in a month of crisis that has that is helping us to open our eyes and cities that had already started working on this progressed beyond others because they started talking about this they started debating they started changing the governance at the local level they started being a lot more active as cities in economic terms for example like in in the management of energy and these changing attitude making the citizens participation be more than just a consultation just a poll this means that cities those cities have a much stronger power than other cities where this opinion has not been expressed because citizens maybe didn't have any experiences how to work all together and some cities in some cities this has been something that is part of the political DNA the political culture this has also been fundamental in order to help municipalities to react super quickly because some municipalities for the last few years have been counting on the well organized citizens base they are more active in economic topics more than others and that's why the healthcare crisis has not proved or has proved that the city should have a certain degree of control over their productive capacity mass production food production you name it there are some things that cities should have worked on previously and that capacity that power of being empowered green city for green cities obviously depending on how we define green cities i will define green cities as those cities have already started working against climate change and against all these issues that we talked about and these cities these green cities have progressed so much because they have used also the crisis as a transformation agent this on the capacity of cities to react very quickly very seriously whenever there is a crisis this is what this COVID-19 crisis proved but to other how to call it or how to call them to other pillars of those cities that were very active in when when putting on the agenda their ambitions about climate change and the earth and the soil and the ground they stepped on well it meant that they were had been working on you know becoming organized all together working all together creating networks of very active cities at the original level like in Catalonia or at the national level like in Spain or internationally as well but it's very important right at the moment of having to react quickly we realized that a more cities that are very connected very well connected with others they are capable of answering to the demands of a crisis like COVID-19 but also to fully participate or to demand a dialogue with the government and right now this COVID moment is a moment that we need to use in the sense that this conversation I don't know if this is happening in Spain I'd like to know but I reckon that the conversation has changed quite a bit on how cities talk to governments and I truly hope that we take a big step this big step has not been made in the European institutions they do not understand how things work and they decided to implement recuperation plan that cost billions of billions of billions of euros without realizing how they will land on their on their lands on their country is just well they react without offering a structured response eight well if support is structured is properly structured we'll involve offering resources to all the municipal strategies and local strategies that are well have very clearly understood how to reach a climate neutrality and this should be the moment and we still have to see the how the green foundation can work with us to do some lobbying with recuperation plans with all the tools we have near our hands I will stop here because I also have the control of the control of the member of our board of mayors as you can Piggio is one of our members of the board of mayors one of the persons that actually will help us to have a very stable a very solid agenda a very strong agenda yes and I truly hope that well I'm sure that we'll be able to to to change the European policies that have not well are not at the level of our times so thank you thank you so much Claire and thank you for your effort but hearing what here we go for our position I think that you speak an absolutely fluid Spanish so don't worry about this congratulations for your explanation and for you know how to put things into into perspective when you think about the thousands of billions that seem like will come in the future you know better than I do the things will come from the plan recuperation plans and this will be added to the normal budgets we have well things that are being discussed eternally being discussed in Brussels but all together in the case you expressed there is a huge amount to be used in what sometimes we wonder we need to be more specific we have to determine locally who will get the cake will it be the usual suspects and also the capacity that administrations the public administration will have when managing whatever comes to them it won't be an easy task maybe during the debate time we'll get back to what we said before thank you Claire I will give now the floor to Andy because he's the director of operations of the kind of mayors which is another big or European organization of local authorities and regional authorities Andy you have the floor thank you thank you so much and apologies I tried I am in the middle of learning some Spanish thanks to Duolingo but Duolingo's modules are not quite sophisticated enough to be talking about cities and and green recovery yet so apologies I will stick to English I want to focus also on the on the how as well as some of the the sort of why and where of green recovery just to take a few minutes to set out some of the evidence around the important role of of cities right across the globe in being positioned as kind of key agents of change in addressing green recovery and some of my material is borrowed from another agency from the international energy agency who the global convent of medicine is working alongside and as long as as well as a number of other partners in thinking about these issues both under the banner of global mission innovation and firmly believes that kind of innovation has a strong role to play in thinking about how we build back differently around how stimulus spending can be used in different ways and new financial mechanisms could potentially be developed to help cities think differently and and and also just in in kind of continuing to push the agenda for more direct access by cities both to things like research and development spending as well as kind of mainstream economic stimulus so the the the covenant works with regions right across the globe and our board of mayors put out a statement earlier this year in in June stating that we kind of firmly believe that that we need a green recovery and that should begin in cities and that as you've heard from others we kind of stand ready to try to meet that challenge and and as we think about kind of recovering from covid then we shouldn't lose sight of the importance of tackling climate change and there is a real opportunity to kind of select a pathway and you've heard many others kind of talking about building back better and but we need to build back cleaner healthier and more sustainable cities so what really does that start to look like and and what does that mean so this is some of that data from the international energy agency and and they've kind of plotted their their pathway and during kind of various states of lockdown and with restrictions both on kind of transport on on other kind of economic activity then we have seen a decrease globally in in the amount of in this case energy sector greenhouse gas emissions but when it comes to thinking about a recovery there are two very different kind of pathways and the international energy agency has plotted those out and and and kind of come to these two kind of ranges that you see in the the differently shaded areas of of the graph there with and without a sustainable recovery and as we approach the the upcoming kind of a major anniversary of of the Paris Agreement and start to think up towards COP26 in Glasgow next year then a real opportunity to kind of think about planning the way in which recovery spending goes in order to try to to set the world really on track to meet those Paris Agreement targets on that pathway with a sustainable recovery rather than you know reverting to business as old normal and continuing without a sustainable recovery and there's a quite kind of market difference in in what that looks like but it won't be easy so alongside those kind of changes to overall economic activity then energy investment will fall significantly in 2020 as a result of of Covid and in particular falls in the amount of of energy efficiency that contributes to that spending so you see overall over there on the right hand side of that very right hand graph on energy and use and and efficiency then investment in 2020 down by about 12% versus 2019 on a straight sector by sector comparison so although we recognise that there is a chance to try to influence decision making about green and sustainable recovery then during the current year kind of overall levels of investment in that case in particular inefficiency but you see also elsewhere in traditional fossil fuel sectors as well has decreased but we're aware that investment in in clean energy and in related sectors is a strong kind of engine of job creation and and many of those will come kind of in in cities and you see in this case on this graph just look at the moment at the one on the left hand side then in particular efficient building retrofit and efficient new buildings towards the bottom of the graph there particularly helpful in terms of jobs created per million in this case dollars of spending of capital investment and you'll notice also solar PV so I'm thinking about generating electricity with solar panels and also fairly strong in that regard and as is changes to urban transport infrastructure and then the the graph on the right looking at things in in slightly different sectors then for kind of a global south less developed economies then recycling also features quite strongly over and above other sectors so you can see that there is a real opportunity around green stimulus spending in in cities for those to be linked to local jobs and to actors as drivers of the local economy and that's also the case kind of not only for those energy sectors but also for others in this case focusing specifically on urban transport that there are employment multipliers for investment in the transport sector and those are strongest around pedestrian infrastructure and bike lanes and electric vehicle charging infrastructure over and above kind of traditional transport means that you see elsewhere on the chart here and these reviews are worldwide so this graph comes from the world energy outlook and previous graphs from the IEA's and analysis across the globe of energy and investment and spending and so there's a real message here about a key moment of opportunity and then the role as Claire said of networks in in helping cities both to be ready to share good examples of success to promote highlights and and bring forward those successes that we're having in order to set ourselves on the path towards a greener recovery and the global covenant and its constituent members and partners as I say working with a number of different agencies in order to support that and make it happen but as others have identified still work to do to continue to both build that evidence base but to really provide support where it's needed on the ground and others have referred to issues around capacity constraints in planning for clean urban projects and related issues there we're doing all that we can by trying to bring on stream new capacity building and technical assistance and funding and the focus for that in recent times has been outside of Europe things like the city climate finance gap fund but we stand ready as a network to work with our partners to continue to promote this super important role of of cities as real engines of the green recovery and recognize that in in in coming back and addressing climate change there are broader opportunities as part of that and many different multiple benefits that will improve the lives of of citizens everywhere so thank you for the chance just to share a bit of that information and plenty more available and look forward to continuing to collaborate thank you thank you brilliant thank you and thank you for your speech and thank you for your slides about what is the situation and what are we handled regarding our future I and I thank you all of you the three that to know you have you have talked about you have been very concentrated on time when I think it's a pleasure to have that for especially for the audience so without more introductions I give I would like to give the and it's a pleasure to give the floor to Sergei Campillo is the deputy mayor of the city of Valencia thank you the floor issues thank you thank you thank you for thank you for for allowing me to participate in this very interesting debate where Valencia would like to offer its vision on what we have been doing the last two years in our city there is a fundamental difference with other cities the progressive government that is leading the city began in the in the 2015 and we had had a very conservative government in the last four years so the policy had changed and I will tell you what experience has been when we have implemented some policies that evidently did not satisfy everyone and also wanted to make reference to what was mentioned before with this very interesting proposal what Barcelona said about the super blocks the super Illa as we call it here which is being replicated in other places policies that would like to or that intend to change the car the core of the way of living in our cities I would also like to make a brief comment about why cities play a key role in this new era in the era that we are when we're suffering the covid pandemic most people in the world live in cities and in Spain this percentage is goes above 80 percent many people live in urban centers and cities have a key role in defining policies because there is where most of the population live their lives their daily lives and therefore we are the key actors in these solutions when considering the challenge that we have observed and that we didn't think would never live like the challenge of living a pandemic with so many restrictions as never ever considered before that's why it's more important than never to have debate forums where cities can create alliances for example the energy city is the body where cities share our policies and our visions about the change in the energy model and how we can create support mutual support networks in that respect I wanted to show you a brief or share with your brief presentation because I believe it's important well here I have it I will try to share it with you with the full screen I would definitely like to make a brief reference about what Valencia is many many of you are listening to us in Spain know us but other people from from other areas of Europe do not know about Valencia not at least as much as Barcelona so let me just place it on the map so that we know what we're talking about Valencia as you can see is a city with 800 000 inhabitants with an area of one minute and a half inhabitants it's a quite compact flat city this facility is mobility greatly we'll talk about mobility in a few minutes and our density is average high it's the third city in Spain and it's the capital of the third urban area of the country it has some important characteristics other than the urban area we can see in on this slide on the left it has a natural area very important area 40 percent of our municipality is a natural park la bufera a natural park where rice grows and well Valencia has a very specific specificity if you allow me to say it so it has a big natural park and an important part of the ownership belongs to the city and this has to be understood in the planning of Valencia and the city of Valencia these are some images of the our reality of our urban and natural reality we have the natural park of la bufera or what what land as you can see in the central image and then we have a period urban orchard which is like an agricultural agricultural urban ring it's a very important factor that defines our city one of the very few european cities that has such a developed period urban structure coming from the arab domination of the iberian peninsula these elements are very important to design a sustainable strategy for the future i reckon that as we could hear before covid generated an important change in our daily lives and in the same design of our policies but as i heard before and we all heard before some of the cities we're working on urban strategies and that heavily with covid will you know you know be strengthened because citizens in different neighborhoods of our districts and cities are requesting more and more open green spaces recuperating public spaces urban park spaces that were used for car purposes to advance towards sustainability then in some layers of civilization smaller smaller than one but they still insisted this was a folkloric kind of a policy it was a hilly-billy policy and well now we have opened a new window of opportunities because many people have seen that our planet is reaching clear limits and covid is also a consequence of the loss of biodiversity of a loss of ecosystems that you can see all over the place quite a few scientific studies will this will be a greater cause for of pandemics amongst the different connection between human communities and animal communities well people are more open to hearing new things we have an international context where the sustainable development goals will be approved stemming from the united nations each country signed this voluntarily is the first world regulatory framework to advance towards sustainable communities with clear goals countries therefore they have developed these strategies through the urban agendas in the case of cities the odss to each city was now through the urban agenda this was approved in in spain into year 2019 in valencia when we began with this new mandate in the year 2019 with the socialist government we started working in the design of our own urban agenda 2030 where we want to you know show some clear elements determining where our city should head to in the coming 2030 years time in the middle of all this covid appeared and we had to put many of our policies into consideration we had to face a very difficult situation with very strict lockdown in spain and then we had to you know cover the healthcare and social emergencies but connected this with the urban agenda the municipal government together with the opposition generated a framework reconstruction agreement for the city where many of these policies have been reflected the first access is a healthy sustainable city that i will mention in the second in order to make the long story short please let me know that i'm talking too much and i will stop what have we done in valencia in the last few years evidently there is a fundamental factor in this slide i really like to see it because this reflects this new concept of our city this is the the city council square where you can see on the right hand this is the city council and so months ago this was a communication street to connect urban and cars in movement through a set of tactic urbanism measures because the urban planning of the square will come in a few years time we had to redesign well then we had a public tendering and now we decided to do to offer and then this we decided to urbanize and 12 000 square meters and picture on the right that shows what happens when you open these areas to as a public city well children take the streets take the squares when children play in the squares that have been recuperated and this is a success for citizens just where we had cars where we had a very hard and harsh square just to allow people going from point A to point B now it's a key a core center where our children and our elderly people can enjoy and if these people enjoy the rest of the neighbors will also enjoy in our city this has been one of our last steps in a process that we prepared in the last a few years of trying to recuperate that this public space we have recuperated areas for pedestrian use 60 000 square meters in the city of valencia this means an important evolution with respect to what we had before not only in the squares of the center of the city we are also in the middle of a program called the valentia the city of squares as a super block in Barcelona we have valentia the city of squares and we want to recuperate the squares in the downtown area of valentia so that these places are core areas where our neighbors can spend the day because this is one of the demands of our citizens in covid times after a very hard lockdown in our homes where many people do not have the inadequate home because maybe they are missing balconies terraces to just take your heads out and breathe something there people said well we need the public space this is one of the consequences that has been strengthened with covid 19 these are other examples of the recuperation of blocks in different neighborhoods that have these inner patios and other examples of of recuperation such as the well the design of a cool route safe school routes well this our kids do not want to need a car to be taken to school this means that children will be able to enjoy the public space in a different way this is a slide about a revolution that i called the revolution of sustainability and mobility that we have in valentia 2015 we had a sustainable urban mobility plan approved in the year 2013 but it was locked up in a drawer for many years in the year 2015 started to implement this sustainable urban mobility plan and the consequences of this plan includes an important bet to use bikes and bike lanes in our flat city so we have developed an interconnected mesh work of bike lanes we have increased in well how total of 156 bike lanes in our cities because people requested the use of bicycle as a safe transportation system in times of covid so using a bike in in cities has is highly appraised considering well that spain is not a traditional bike country but we had a small bike lane mesh work that allowed us to reach the areas of the city now this is not so anymore we have increased our mesh work our network in the last few years and people feel very happy about this bike lane network the bike users in valentia seem to be the happiest considering the expansion of our the expansion of our network so we want to take space away from cars and give it to bikes and to pedestrians these are some of the examples of these bike lanes we worked on for the last few years in our city another important aspect that we developed in the last few years and mainly in the last few months in the year so we started in the year 2019 well energy transition system in our cities we had the action plan for climate and energy and it's a plan that was approved with goals that we have that allowed us to reduce CO2 emissions in our city but in the last few months we just made a quantum leap because we have improved energy use municipally we have this energy that inform people on how to use stuff consumption system in buildings in the cities valentia this has huge potential in the respect and we are so developing the energy group so that neighbors can reach an agreement and then produce community energy and use it also as a community in our city this is a huge step forward in valentia city that we will support in the coming years we are also see the use of photovoltaic setups areas that protect people from the sunday act as a shelter and there is a very interesting project in school patios to create these photovoltaic patios to protect school children from the sun it's valentia this is very high and also to reuse that energy for the good of the of the schools so they are trying to be energetically very efficient and last but not least let me stop for a second on a very important project we have in the city of valentia we're developing a green infrastructure strategy for the city and i would like to thank barcelona because they received us very kindly to tell us what their via diversity plan was like and they were in a plan so approximately in valentia city we have five million cities i'm sorry areas with green squares and green areas green zones i would like to see where we would like to take our green infrastructure in our city we have more different shelters different roofs buildings in valentia have very flat roofs that will allow us to set up photovoltaic setups orchards the gardens managed by neighbors themselves they would like to inform our neighbors about this and this is the front page of the biodiversity plan of valentia our own urban green urban infrastructure the city's infrastructure should be connected to lago feda park natural park in the last few years we've been implementing these green areas in since the year 2015 we have increased 375 000 square meters and due to covid if we already understood the importance of our green areas in our cities i believe i believe that one people at least in valentia started to to be go back to quote unquote normal life people after the lockdown decided to to go to the green areas of the cities because they realized that these green areas are nature it's our contact with nature in our cities and therefore it was very very important to go back to the green areas we understood from the very beginning that unlike other cities we immediately open the green areas of our city because these spaces people is where people needed to connect with with nature after the pandemic after the tough lockdown and we wanted to open these green areas to our citizenship and let me finish with an interesting slide and i will finish with this here we can see the green infrastructure that we would like to develop in our city we have a huge garden which is the toria river garden the old river that was taken somewhere else towards the south this became a garden this river basin became a garden and we have a huge opportunity in this new uh reverberation on the south because this is just a cement basin and we have to re-naturalize so to speaking that that basin this is a project simulation it's a project for valentia for the main metropolitan area this includes other cities this is highly motivating and challenging project for the coming decades this is thrilling because we want to connect the metropolitan area through the green infrastructures stitching the urban urban spaces at the super municipal structure through a network of green spaces as we can see on the left all these uh cities municipalities of the metropolitan area valentia our own districts our towns have to be connected with green infrastructures that allow people to to walk to communicate to to you know to take to grab your their bikes but not having to use a public transportation this is a right of that people have the right of walking uh from point a to point b uh using a well-developed green infrastructure and this is a another project uh that intends to re-naturalize the seafront and well let me finish by saying thank you for this debate allowing uh our city to explain what we are working on what our green system policies are like and definitely to answer any questions that you would like to uh answer about your experience or about anything else you would like to definitely talk about thank you thank you sedgey to tell you the truth and those of us who spend many days in Brussels seeing the pictures of valentia generates a huge huge envy let me ask you the container you have behind you it's a real container it works the green one yes it's a small uh it's a small uh crystal igloo that uh was a person from co bidrio well it's a subliminal publicity uh good for you thank you as we said before with uh we're at the beginning of our webinar we are running uh not late but early actually we uh have we have enjoyed many webinars but this is truly a pleasure to have you all here and we have several questions obviously we cannot ask all the questions i will try to make a selection if you allow me to do so because someone should do it and we will uh continue with the or the now of intervention the first question is addressed to jenneth santh and the question says well jenneth do you believe that the continuous criticism that are being made from different uh media and different different parties different platforms are due to well i don't know what they are due to because he froze so we'll have to determine what they are due to we lost them we lost them jenneth says this is the whole intervention of the mayor's hand and jenneth i think that you have to ask the question and answer i don't know the question was i was i'm sorry i was i was told that uh we had a a problem a thing a problem well many of the criticism that come from different platforms few but the heavy platforms some media some some article writers criticize that the measures that you're taking are not very bad are not very good i mean to per se they're pretty bad and he froze again i think this problem should be could be solved if we had an rsd i connection i can imagine the what the question is that we couldn't hear you let me go back to the question the question is what projects what participation programs and information have you developed from the city country of barcelona with respect to the new mobility because you know that many other criticisms come from people who say that there's no participation there's no interest and this is the dictatorship of mrs santh that's what they call it your dictatorship you know first of all let me say how many people that request us to go beyond our our limits in some platforms people say well this has a huge projection but many people through networks through forums neighborhood debate areas say that we are going very slowly so when we are pulled from different ends we are more focused we are more centered we are developing a project that is a realistic project that is a necessary project and that it's a gradual project because we understand that everything has to be you know adapted there's a model change an important model change we are not just observing something simple evidently some people say well when you make such a behavior change you will face a certain degree of resistance so people say well the effort for all of us is huge but the benefit is what i tried to show the benefit for everyone is much bigger and with a little effort and and and you know with the coaching of administrations we can all be highly strengthened out of and this intervention i would like to take a key element many of the criticism also has to do with the economic model the job creation model and this is one of the key elements the urban transformation and model change has to generate new opportunities economic opportunities that are different different from what we had before more fair better redistributed better paid incorporating that rational that's sustainable real and sustainable presentation we've talked about the green capitalism this is a brainwashing it's not for real we wanted something solid and the reconversion of the industry is a fundamental element and i'd like to show examples when i speak beyond the criticism we receive that generate a useless echo i'd like to talk about figures and focus on strategic projects and i always look at what that in Wurttemberg region did when they transformed things when they had to face a mining crisis they transferred the whole sector jobs that were eliminated they were retrained and they invested in the whole region to generate a change in the rehab of buildings there was an important bet they generated new jobs and to me there is another example in the case of Switzerland they've specialized in mobility as a service something connected to the services of all the complementary mobility that can generate the public infrastructure of mobility these are examples that are close to us and that they can inspire an eco transition for our economy something necessary and we had to understand as you know what happens in Barcelona you know the food industry the agro food industry etc this strategy of the food industry is very important in the farming surrounding farming park around El Prat we had a possibility of new job creation you know creating a food creation serving the key element that we should potentiate it have always been at the service of speculation the importance of you know you know stirring things up so that they are part of the people's rights and when we can prove that all this is not just a fight of some against the others and then we have alternatives you have new alternatives that generate new jobs stable jobs not precarious jobs for the future that build an urban space a city which is healthier where our children can breathe at peace the future of these kids lungs is guaranteed and we do so with an approach which proves that living in a city is possible no matter how old you are what is your race gender sexual orientation you name it they are safe cities that are betting for the strengthening of these values well these are the key ingredients to prove that the model is valid we'll have to you know you know bear with all these criticism with a great deal of love and pedagogy generating participative processes as we have always done covid a place that put us in a difficult space we learned little by little and step by step but it's also true that right now with the project that we just launched i cannot see more people i cannot meet with more people we are meeting with neighbors and that began in the year 2015 in the case of bursarana we've been doing so for the last two legislations so everyone knew everyone knew we had it in our electoral plan and this what we're doing is what we were committed to doing so with all the respect to all opinions and i believe that we will definitely observe the the bet we have bursarana has to continue bursarana has to be possible and currently the only possibility is but the bursarana is possible is changing the model with new energies with the management of climate change and christ and energy management new opportunities new jobs non precarious jobs these are central access of our action plan and this is a message for both clara as well as and we need help when it's support in the rebuilding agreement of europe we should be taken into consideration because this european reconstruction for europe has to include certain industries which are from the perspective of model change is good but we also need the proposals from other cities have to be considered we have to have our own voice in these areas in europe and not always go through states who are not in the trenches who are do not know about the immutable emergencies as we do we have to you know you wouldn't have to lose face when we talk to neighbors when we hear their requests because we because they need to hear our answers our and we need the city alliances that can have and show a joint voice in the european union which is regulating things proactively in the air in the air of air contamination if we did not have such a legislation Madrid wouldn't have a central Madrid and many other projects would have you know fallen and they would have dropped from these projects so we have to appraise the value of your actions from green areas from green groups the green european foundation is a case of they are paramount in these strategies so we need to elevate those what raise those voices in order to strengthen even more the fact that these resources come to us allowing us to prove that we will not go against anyone quite the opposite we are making proposals so that everyone lives their life thank you genet as you know i am quite older than you are and all the fights you are fighting i had to fight in el prat municipality or i was a deputy mayor when the changes in the el prat streets was presented so we have to know that even the most critical citizens if you well if others recuperate the government of the city none of those measures will be taken back no one no one i believe that in europe i have made this study but no one ever in europe has changed the some of these plans because this means quality of life so go ahead with it continue fighting with a lot of energy well very easy because you you link your question with that next question with clear with claire this question is for claire you talked about the european funds what are you considering some people fear that funds are allocated to the usual suspects what are you doing from energy cities which speak to criteria in the distribution of funds and who will decide once this is in the hands of public original administrations and local administrations and the states who will control of doing what when other than your concern what are your proposals yes we've been trying to do things from the beginning of the crisis there's a recuperation plan that is being prepared we need a dialogue with the commission and i don't know why but is it quite late now do i do i feel like leaving the diplomatic level aside and talk more broadly but i think that we should start with a totally pirate strategy and say that we will prepare huge innovative projects incredible projects about hydrogen and then we will have the money and then once we have the money we will use that money wherever it is needed because the crucial thing is the following the problem is that what we need to do now are complex projects projects that require a little money but this means lots of little projects also have a big projects as janet described which is something that will change the city completely but inside the project i believe that we will have very many small projects that will change the neighborhoods and this is the commission because this is a mega organization but nationally they don't really know how to change the funding system towards projects that are smaller that are more participative projects that require company private companies like the projects of energy energy that you did in your organized in valencia and that you can also find in barcelona and many other cities this is an investment that doesn't require so much public so many poly funds but we need a greater capacity as you very well said sergi so that munici parties can help from the very beginning of the project so all this coordination all those actions should have access to a minimum of information and technical support and we have to invest on that because we need information the future is now with huge visions some resourcing projects of public spaces but very many small projects i believe that right now that avenue didn't lead us to to any successes on friday this week we will talk be talking with vice president tim remence five mayors will talk to him i don't expect much from from this conversation because tim remence as a vice president what he wants is to play his little game and his little game is the climate pact i don't know who's listening in youtube right now maybe i should be more careful with my my words but in any case he wants he wants everyone to be supporting the commission but no one knows how people will be helped and the friday after with together with sergi campiglia we have a conversation with the commissioner of energy mrs simpson and there we will ask her how to make all the money of recuperation can be more specific oh these are conversations we're having now but we're heading the right track we're heading the right direction and as janet said before for decades we've talked about green growth and even if we say so now and even if there is something behind things are changing a little by little so i truly hope to see something happening but the mechanisms are not there anymore and this is a problem because money without a guideline without a thinking is well it's of no use we need thinking as well thank you so much claire in our list of people who signed to this governor it's approximately 90 people no one's from the commission so don't worry next question we have more questions than time we have more questions that require long explanations don't worry those of you who ask the questions uh well we will send your questions to the speakers and we'll see what the answer is next question is for andy one for each andy and the new horizons foundation is in catalonia as you very well know there is a question that comes from the world of aviation what do you think about the future of aviation commercial aviation before you answer and andy i would like to apologize jenet since she has to leave to another meeting in the same format so thank you so much jenet we'll still be in contact in the near future thank you all the best take care bye bye andy what is your opinion about the future of aviation in europe thank you thank you not my specialist subjects when it comes to the technology um what i will say is that uh at the moment uh many of those watching will be aware that there is an issue in that emissions from aviation are not fully reflected inside most emissions counting mechanisms um and there is work that can be done to um kind of bring a greater representation of what's truly happening uh then inside the emissions inventories um that applies both at a kind of individual city scale um but also then nationally as well as internationally um and and you know obviously there's recognition that at the moment the the full scale of the um um uh kind of emissions from that particular sector are not recommended are not are not recognised but then they're not necessarily alone um in in that regard and i think you know as cities then we've seen some uh start to experiment with looking at consumption based uh emissions reporting um and mechanisms to start to look at and account for kind of the true value of of total emissions and it will be interesting just to see if that approach uh kind of continues to grow and in that way uh kind of emissions from that sector um as well as others can be recognised in in emissions accounting work that that cities are leading um on on the technologies um you know many possibilities that are out there um and i mentioned the the the role of of kind of innovation and i'm sure we'll continue to see um investment uh both in in in kind of continuing alternatives to to fossil fuel um burning in in that sector um but i think uh you know a lot of work to do to to advance towards it it's full recognition as well alongside that so sorry yeah not not something i can answer on the the specifics of of kind of fuels and the technology in the sector but i i think there is work to do now thank you thank you andy thanks god you are not an specialist thank you very much for your uh answer would you like um would you like to add something of what is the vision of the global the global the global governor of mayors regarding the recovery plan from the european union yeah thank you um uh so then uh and so um part of what will happen through the green recovery will be an ambition for europe uh to then kind of both advance ambition on climate issues and in this important year where globally uh nations across the world are looking at their nationally determined contributions towards uh increasing ambition in advance of the climate talks in glasgo and then that positioning and the diplomacy and advocacy that will come from the european side alongside that where those emissions reductions can really be recognised and will be important and for us as the the global covenant then um we also have some work underway to uh bring forward the idea of regional and local contributions um as contributions to those ndc so to really build from the from the bottom up um and so part of our ambition is to uh you know help to bring forward and foster a scheme um that then aligns um closely with that national and international accounting but really builds from from the bottom up and and to use that to advance ambition so whether it is in in aviation or you know in other sectors then one of the roles that that the global covenant has played is to aggregate opportunities from individual cities into a kind of global estimate of emission savings potential and an aggregation report kind of published every year um that builds on work done by the european covenant and and all of the kind of member um uh covenants of the global covenant to then build up to to an estimate of potential emission savings from cities to continue to to build that case um you know to kind of give cities a stronger voice both in kind of important international climate negotiations um but but through many other fora whether that is kind of more direct access uh to funding that's directed towards uh green green sectors or elsewhere so i think that there's an important role to continue to play in kind of bringing together a collective voice from many many cities you know now well over um 10 000 committed to the global covenant of mayors through EU covenant as well as others um around the world and i think a real opportunity to continue to to build from that but but really that needs an element that comes kind of right from the bottom um up rather than as others have said you know kind of those in in seats of of power in different locations around the world expecting to govern from the top down and thank you andy thanks andy and sergi we have the last question is for you so you are used to tough questions this to come from the same person probably living in valencia is the city council of valencia is is it considering the possibility of being priority to uh to tramways versus private cars and secondly in the new pies do you observe the possibility of sorry i lost that part so that we have smaller green areas but maybe that the addition of all of these small green areas can add up to a bigger total respect to the first question valencia has transport systems that till short ago had a uh inefficient managing because urban buses in valencia were managed by the municipal transport agency which is totally municipal and tramways and and subways were managed by ferrocarriles de la geneta valentiana which is an autonomous regional company and there was no no body no other all metropolitan transport authority and there though we created one two three years ago and it is still in the process of integration of the different modes of transport uh well that was our starting point when we got there in the year 2015 each administration was managing his it's our well it's its public transportation system the case of the tramway that crosses the city well it was the first city that recuperated tramways in 1994 and it was the first one recuperating it well there is some pedestrian priority in certain areas there are some the other priority for tramways instead of other points but not in most of the network this is an issue that should be requested by ferrocarriles and by the railways of the government so that from the city council no one had that's a priority there is a passage for a priority of passage whenever the this train the subway is approaching stop green lights turn on and and green and and red lights also go on for for cars if this this is approved in the general budget of spain will receive some 40 million euros and the first time that we received such a big amount of money with respect to the green parks connected to uh janet said this super blog and person so we had to eliminate asphalt and we had to eliminate us from some some areas of the city while creating draining services that allow water to be percolated and absorbed on the ground not collapsing our water relief systems in case of of huge rain storms that are quite frequent here and that generate a a a a heat island as we call it our trees are feel happy when they have small amounts of water but then when we have just few drops we have increased the size of what we call the basins around the tree the pits that allow us to to to to work differently and these smaller neighborhoods require these pits around the trees the boundaries of the trees so that they can have their own trees well thank you very much Sergio for your answer for that very specific information to consider these two very specific questions logically asked by a birth valentia citizen well uh i would like to thank you all on behalf of new horizons foundation and on behalf of the green european foundation particularly janet although she she left claire andy and sergi for your participation for your uh foot for thought on your presentations very specific very positive explanations and very deep and and highly addressed to the topics that we were dealing with uh well this is uh riga uh was disconnected uh right at the moment she had uh free some free time in her agenda but they will she went back to tell me that they will to greet you all and to thank you all on december 10th we'll be back here to talk to you about tourism not only for Mediterranean tourism touristic cities but also for those those cities that had a huge problem which was a massive tourism and a massification of our cities thank you again and i hope to see you very very soon please take care of yourselves follow the uh follow the rules that that will keep you safe in the future thank you and take care