CIPRA representatives:

Personal tools

  Search filter  

News

Towards Carbon Neutral Alps - a guideline

Jul 10, 2013 / alpMedia
The strategies for carbon neutrality are numerous. Municipalities and regions all over the Alps are confronted with various challenges and opportunities on the way to carbon neutrality. The Alpstar-Guideline provides an overview.
Image caption:
Cycling is only one of the steps towards climate neutral Alps that can be found in the Alpstar guideline. © Verein Alpenstadt des Jahres
How to change individual lifestyles and consumer behavior? How to save energy, produce it in a more responsible way, and, in addition, use it more efficiently? Those are questions that every region has to ask itself. Nevertheless, the challenges and barriers towards carbon neutrality the Alpine Space faces are similar. How to run this process successfully is shown in the guideline by the partners of the Alpine Space project "Alpstar".
Bringing people together and sharing the vision of carbon neutrality are very important parts of a successful climate policy. The initiative needs to be supported broadly by the region and strengthen its sense of identity.
Furthermore realistic aims and implementation measures have to be elaborated. Conflicts of interests, temporal challenges or financial expenditure can be obstacles that occur on the way to carbon neutrality. Furthermore, to reach the declared aims, the engagement of local people has to be maintained in the long term.
The guideline provides good practice examples, such as the climate plan of Grenoble's agglomeration area, obstacles, success factors and short interviews with key actors from different regions. Within the project Alpstar 13 Partners share their experiences of their efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the Alpine Space efficiently. In this way Alpstar contributes to the climate action plan of the Alpine Convention. CIPRA France is one of the project partners while CIPRA International supports the pilot region Rhine Valley and the Alpine Town of the Year Association.
Alpstar is co-financed by the EU-Alpine Space Program and running from 2011 to 2014.
Source and further information: http://alpstar-project.eu/