UT partners at the workshop on “Barriers and Enablers for Urban Climate Governance: what is hampering the transition toward carbon-neutrality in European cities”

On the 28^th and the 29^th of October, Gerard Martínez Görbig (University of Twente) was invited to join the workshop “Barriers and Enablers for Urban Climate Governance: what is hampering the transition toward carbon-neutrality in European cities”. The event was held in Barcelona, organised by Lorenzo Chelleri, Eloïse Deshayes (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya), and Joe Ravetz (University of Manchester), within the context of the Urban Resilience Research Network.

In the workshop, seventeen passionate researchers and the three organisers worked together interactively, sharing their insights on exploring the barriers to achieving carbon neutrality in European cities to establish common perspectives for further exploration of the topic. The workshop started on Monday afternoon with a series of keynotes from relevant speakers. It continued with roundtable work, during which the participants tried to brainstorm and map out challenges to achieve carbon neutrality. On Tuesday, the work continued, establishing synergies within the group, creating new research opportunities and strengthening the topics’ knowledge.

The workshop helped participants to have an overarching perspective on barriers and enablers to carbon neutrality. Moreover, such an interactive event allowed the researchers to identify synergies within their work and create working groups for further research in the upcoming months.

The results will help have a more comprehensive idea of what can make climate action feasible, adding an important contribution to the work of the University of Twente in the project LOCALISED.