Climate-4-CAST - a climate action decision-support tool to accelerate cities’ progress towards climate neutrality
Climate-4-CAST provides authorities with a tool to visualise and analyse various action scenarios for meeting climate goals, to better plan public budgets with climate neutrality measures and monitor results of their implementation.
Details
- Period: 2023-11-01 – 2026-10-31
- Budget: 3,451,487 SEK
- Funder: EU, Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme 2021-2027
- Type of funding: Project grant
Description
The Climate-4-CAST project is co-funded by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme 2021-2027. The goal is to improve the capacity of cities to plan for decreased emissions by using climate budgeting. The project is led by HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) in collaboration with partners across the Baltic Sea Region.
Climate-4-CAST recognises that effective climate action must extend to the local level, particularly within local public authorities that face unique challenges and opportunities. Recognising uncertainties as barriers, the project empowers local authorities by providing practical decision support through an open-source tool for visualising different action scenarios, improving budget planning, and monitoring results. Climate-4-CAST bridges communication gaps between experts and decision-makers to ensure that data is incorporated into local climate policies, alongside giving technical support.
Anticipated outcomes, therefore, encompass enhanced decision-making with simplified processes, the alignment of climate targets with budget planning, and accelerated and measurable progress towards climate neutrality in the Baltic Sea Region cities.
In a co-creative process spanning three years, Climate-4-CAST engages in collaboration and testing within six pilot cities – Aarhus, Bytom, Norderstedt, Östersund, Riga, and Tampere. This approach allows the project to evaluate the applicability of its tool in diverse contexts. Workshops, regional conferences and international gatherings serve as platforms for transferring information about climate budget instruments, their application, and experiences in the pilot cities.
In Climate-4-CAST Uppsala University brings technical expertise in carbon emissions calculation, building upon carbon budgeting research in Sweden and beyond. Uppsala University leads the pilot co-evaluation activities and also works on the operationalization of the tool, with the goal of validating the usability and integration of the tool.
Uppsala University also advises city partners on emissions data sources and calculations, supporting the piloting efforts, and contributing to knowledge transfer activities.
We lead Group of activities 2.2: Co-evaluation and tool iteration.
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