Copernicus responding to EU Cities Mission

The recently concluded H2020 project CURE prepared the ground for exploitation of Copernicus Core Services in urban planning.

Achieving climate neutrality requires a city that has joint the EU Mission on “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities” (the Cities Mission), to reduce the Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions from all sectors within the city’s boundary to net zero by 2030, including emissions within the city boundary, from: combustion of fossil fuels in buildings and facilities; combustion of fossil fuels for all vehicles and transport; and changes in land use (agriculture, forestry and other land uses).

All the above are considered as Scope 1 GHG emissions (direct emissions) and the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS), based on the CURE method for CO2 emissions monitoring, holds promise in aiding cities to achieve the ambitious goals of the Mission, by assisting in monitoring the efficiency of efforts to trace the advancement towards climate neutrality.

The proposed project CLMS-Cities (Copernicus responding to EU Cities Mission) aims to improve CLMS with new elements and products, capable of being integrated into land planning decisions with regard to climate change mitigation at local scale.

CLMS-Cities will contribute to CLMS evolution, as it is expected to lead to more evidence-based urban planning activities related to climate change mitigation, resulting in improved GHG emissions inventory methods and outputs to support cities to meet the Mission’s ambitious objectives.

It will focus on the ten cities of the Mission that were recently (2023) labelled, providing the Mission’s community with spatially disaggregated environmental intelligence at a local scale and a proof-of-concept that urban planning and management strategies enhancing the GHG inventories can be supported by CLMS.

CLMS-Cities method will be modular and scalable, delivering consistent products across the cities of the Mission and developing synergies between CLMS and third-party data sources.