Until 6 September 2021, municipalities with a population of 60,000
inhabitants or more will be able to access funding made available by the Italian
Ministry of Ecological Transition (MiTE) for the implementation of
interventions aimed at increasing the resilience of their settlement systems. The
experimental programme for the Emilia-Romagna Region has
pre-allocated resources of € 9.5 million. For the Municipality of Bologna is
planned up to € 1.8 million.
The project application
forms must indicate:
- an overall presentation
of the project actions (e.g. description of the context and sectors
concerned such as construction, infrastructure and transport, energy, water,
agriculture, health, forestry, biodiversity, etc.);
- an indication of the risks
from climate change (specifying which vulnerable groups, such as the
elderly, children or the chronically ill, are most exposed to these risks) for
which adaptation and mitigation actions are intended to be carried out (e.g.
urban heat waves/heat islands, extreme rainfall and/or drought phenomena);
- existing planning
instruments related to climate adaptation (e.g. Territorial Plans, Sustainable
Energy Action Plan, etc.) that will work in synergy with funded actions;
In order to monitor the
progress and effectiveness of the actions to be financed, a description
of their cost-benefit ratio (paying particular attention to the
'secondary' environmental, social and economic co-benefits) and the indicators
that will be used are requested in the application form (e.g. % urban
forestation carried out as a function of total area considered; number of
gardens created and restoration of soil permeability; etc. Moreover, with
regard to environmental effectiveness, e.g.: the decrease in the heat island
effect; the decrease in energy demand in the summer season; the decrease in
landslides).
In addition to a clear
reference to the identified climate risks, the list of expected results
in the overall description must be supplemented by appropriate
estimates of the effect of their potential enhancements (possibly
quantified in economic terms and in terms of primarily social impact on the
territory such as job creation or social acceptability of the intervention).
A wide range of actions are
eligible for funding, which are strongly linked to the topics covered by the
study, research and implementation of new instruments of the VEG-GAP project,
as:
- the implementation of
climatic building measures, green roofs and walls, vertical forests, tree
shading barriers, insulation and natural ventilation systems, cool and
ventilated roofs, etc.;
- the implementation of
measures aimed at improving local knowledge (e.g. implementation of
climate/impact/vulnerability databases, predictive ICT platforms, strengthening
of monitoring systems, search for new sources of urban water supply, etc.), as
well as the drafting of municipal climate change adaptation planning tools;
- implementation of measures
to improve local forecasting capacity (e.g. climate scenarios, risk analysis,
etc.);
- implementation of
awareness-raising, training, community engagement campaigns on local adaptation
for local actors and the stakeholder network (e.g. demonstration days,
workshops, conferences, and so on).
The governance of the
programme has been assigned to a Monitoring Board, with
representatives from MiTE, ANCI (National Association of Italian
Municipalities) and ISPRA (Superior Institute for Environmental
Protection and Research), which will be in charge of checking and assessing
the project application forms, monitoring the progress of the funded
intervention and promoting coordination with other existing funding and
supports to climate adaptation policies.
Find out more at the
website: https://www.minambiente.it/pagina/adattamento-climatico