Abstract
Urbanization is currently perceived as a major challenge of the 3rd millennium, with severe repercussions in terms of Climate Change (CC) deterioration and related impacts. In fact, cities are deemed to be the ‘source’, but also the ‘solution’ to CC emergency. Such an ascertainment lies at the heart of the European Mission on ‘Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities’ that falls into the 2050 EU long term strategy towards climate neutrality; and seeks to improve urban sustainability and resilience by leveraging the concept of cities’ nature- and technology-enabled climate neutrality. Along these lines, this paper delves into the preparedness or readiness of several Greek cities towards the directions set by the European Mission for Cities. Twelve cities – most thereof capitals of respective regional entities – already active, in one way or another, in the CO2 reduction endeavor and smart initiatives realm, are explored in this respect. These are evaluated by means of Multicriteria Analysis (MCA), grounded on numerous Mission-oriented criteria, such as CO2 emissions, participation in the Covenant of Mayors, waste management, deployment of digital infrastructure, smart city applications, governance schemes, etc. Results obtained uncover the diversified state and starting point of Greek cities investigated as to the EU Mission objectives.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
UN - United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/352). Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, United Nations (2015). https://population.un.org/wup/publications/files/wup2014-report.pdf. Accessed 22 Jan 2023
Suzuki, H., Dastur, A., Moffatt, S., Yabuki, N., Maruyama, H.: Eco2Cities - ecological cities as economic cities. The World Bank (2010). https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-8046-8
De Filippi, F., Coscia, C., Guido, R.: From smart-cities to smart-communities: how can we evaluate the impacts of innovation and inclusive processes in urban context? Int. J. E-Plann. Res. 8(2), 24–44 (2019). https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEPR.2019040102
Panagiotopoulou, M., Kokla, M., Stratigea, A.: Conceptualizing small and medium-sized smart cities in the mediterranean: an ontological approach. Int. J. e-Plann. Res. 8(4), 17–41 (2019). https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEPR.2019100102
UN Environmental Programme. https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/cities/cities-and-climate-change. Accessed 18 Jan 2023
OECD: Cities and climate change – Policy Perspectives – National Governments Enabling Local Action (2014). https://www.oecd.org/environment/cc/Cities-and-climate-change-2014-Policy-Perspectives-Final-web.pdf. Accessed 18 Jan 2023
IRP - International Resource Panel: The Weight of Cities - Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization. Report by the IRP, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya (2018). https://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/weight-cities, Accessed 31 Jan 2023
Davoudi, S.: Climate change, securitisation of nature, and resilient urbanism. Eviron. Plann. C. Gov. Policy 32(2), 360–375 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1068/c12269
IPCC: Climate Change 2014 - Mitigation of Climate Change. Chapter 12, Human Settlements, Infrastructure and Spatial Planning. Potsdam, IPCC—Working Group III (2014)
Liang, L., Wang, Z., Li, J.: The effect of urbanization on environmental pollution in rapidly developing urban agglomerations. J. Clean. Prod. 237, 117649 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117649
Zipperer, C.W., Northrop, R., Michael Andreu, M.: Urban development and environmental degradation. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science (2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.97
Talib, M.N.A., Hashmi, S.H., Aamir, M., Khan, M.A.: Testing non-linear effect of urbanization on environmental degradation: cross-country evidence. Front. Environ. Sci. 10, 971394 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.971394
UNEP – United Nations Environmental Programme: Making Peace with Nature - A Scientific Blueprint to Tackle the Climate, Biodiversity and Pollution Emergencies. Nairobi (2021). ISBN 978-92-807-3837-7. https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-naturelast. Accessed 28 Jan 2023
Piñuela, M., Clifton, J.: Action Plan to Tackle the Triple Crisis. Cultivo Land PBC (2021). https://cultivo.land/documents/Cultivo_Action_Plan_Triple-Crisis.pdf. Accessed 17 Jan 2023
Girardet, H.: Creating Sustainable Cities. Green Books Ltd., Devon (1999). ISBN 9780857843524
Panagiotopoulou, M., Stratigea, A., Leka, A.: Gathering global intelligence for assessing performance of smart, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive cities (S2RIC): an integrated indicator framework. In: Silva, C.N. (ed.) Citizen-Responsive Urban E-Planning: Recent Developments and Critical Perspectives, pp. 305–345. IGI Global (2020). https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-4018-3. ISBN13 9781799840183
Kanter, R.M., Litow, S.S.: Informed and interconnected: a manifesto for smarter cities. Harvard Business School General Management Unit Working Paper 09-141 (2009)
Stratigea, A., Leka, A., Panagiotopoulou, M.: In search of indicators for assessing smart and sustainable cities and communities’ performance. Int. J. e-Plann. Res. 6(1), 43–73 (2017). https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEPR.2017010103
UNECE – United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: Climate Neutral Cities – How to Make Cities Less Energy and Carbon Intensive and More Resilient to Climatic Changes. United Nations, ECE/HBP/168, Geneva, Switzerland (2011)
Brunetta, G., Caldarice, O., Tollin, N., Rosas-Casals, M., Morató, J.: Urban Resilience for Risk and Adaptation Governance – Theory and Practice. Springer, Heidelberg (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76944-8. ISSN 2524-5988
Theodora, Y., Stratigea, A.: Climate change and strategic adaptation planning in mediterranean insular territories: gathering methodological insights from greek experiences. In: Gervasi, O., et al. (eds.) ICCSA 2021. LNCS, vol. 12958, pp. 100–115. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87016-4_8 ISBN 978-3-030-87015-7
Managi, S., Lindner, R., Stevens, C.C.: Technology policy for the sustainable development goals: from the global to the local level. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang. 162, 120410 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120410
Ordonez-Ponce, E.: The role of local cultural factors in the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Sustain. Dev. 31(2), 1122–1134 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2445
COM(2019) 640 final: The European Green Deal. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, European Commission, Brussels (2019)
Dasgupta, S., Lall, S., Wheeler, D.: Cutting global carbon emissions: where do cities stand? (2022). https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/cutting-global-carbon-emissions-where-do-cities-stand. Accessed 29 Jan 2023
Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P., Voogd, H.: Decision Support Model for Regional Sustainable Development. Avebury, Aldershot (1990)
Vreeker, R., Nijkamp, P., Ter Welle, C.: A multicriteria decision support methodology for evaluating airport expansion plans. TI 2001-005/3, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper (2001)
Nijkamp, P., Torrieri, F.: A decision support system for assessing alternative projects for the design of a new road network. Serie Research Memoranda 2000-2 1, Free University Amsterdam (2000)
Nijkamp, P.: Culture and region: a multidimensional evaluation of monuments. Research Memorandum 1987-71, Free University of Amsterdam (1987)
Hinloopen, E., Nijkamp, P.: Qualitative multiple criteria choice analysis: the dominant REGIME method. Research Memorandum 1986-45, Free University of Amsterdam (1986)
Giffinger, R., Fertner, C., Kramar, H., Kalasek, R., Pichler-Milanović, N., Meijers, E.: Smart cities ranking of European medium-sized cities (final report). Centre of Regional Science, Vienna UT (2007). http://www.smart-cities.eu/download/smart_cities_final_report.pdf. Accessed 20 Jan 2023
Stratigea, A.: The concept of smart cities – towards community development? NETCOM 26(3–4), 377–390 (2012). https://doi.org/10.4000/netcom.1105
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Panagiotopoulou, M., Agalioti, M., Stratigea, A. (2023). EU Mission on ‘Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities’ – Assessing Readiness to Join of 12 Greek Cities. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2023 Workshops. ICCSA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14105. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37108-0_42
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37108-0_42
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-37107-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37108-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)