The referral was made by the French Presidency of the Council with the main point of seeing how climate ambitions can be balanced against the social protection of citizens, especially the most vulnerable groups
The opinion aims to look at how developing resilience can strengthen social protection through a more resilient economy and society
The opinion also explores what it means to develop resilience - from the choice of the right policy, to financing individual projects.
The opinion was a referal from the French Presidency and it served to connect with the Presidency on key aspects of the opinion.
It also impacted the reshaping of the Local Green Deal initiative of the ICC (in partnership with DG GROW, EISMEA and ICLEI).
Furthermore, significant elements of the opinion were represented in key events, such as the first annual Forum on the Mission on Adaptation, COP27, the first official CoR submission to the UNFCCC etc.
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- Believes that the green transition should be at the heart of any policy choices, building a new, systemic and integrated approach to the design and implementation of future policies and programmes;
- Supports the definition of a climate-resilient Europe, in line with the mission of Horizon Europe, combining the resilience of environmental, social and economic systems with a commitment to long-term sustainable development, including equality, social justice and gender equality;
- Calls for the right conditions to be put in place to develop the social economy. The political and legal framework is key to creating the right environment for the social economy;
- stresses that businesses and industry should support efforts to adapt to climate change and that legal and financial means should be put in place to avoid that the local population internalises the costs of negative business externalities;
- Strongly underlines that the most important funds (EU cohesion policy, Recovery and Resilience Facility, Just Transition Fund, Modernisation Fund, etc.), as well as those directly aimed at the local and regional levels (LIFE, Connecting Europe Facility, etc.) which seek to support the green transition, are programmed at national level and that the scope of local and regional projects depends on central government guidelines;
- Points out that, apart from direct access to funding, local and regional authorities should receive adequate technical assistance and support for capacity-building, in order to exploit existing funding opportunities, assist these authorities in ensuring an effective balance between private and public funds, and make greater use of green and sustainable public procurement for investments.