Overview of challenges and practices in South Mediterranean countries to make information the key to action

With the ongoing commitment of the meetMED project funded by the European Union to fostering energy efficiency measures in building sector, ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency) in cooperation with the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Geres NGO and CLER, a French network for energy transition are organising a series of three webinars for local authorities and national energy agencies.

The objectives of these webinars are to facilitate the dialogue between national and local authorities to build a roadmap for disseminating the practices & tools at the national and regional scale. It contributes to sharing the know-how, and the challenges and discussing how to overcome these challenges.

The first webinar entitled “Energy & Climate Information Service – A key for territorial action” is taking place on 21 December 2023, 14:00 – 15:30 (CET Time).

Background:

The Mediterranean concentrates 7% of the world population and represents 8% of energy consumption overall primary energy. Building is one of the most energy consuming sector in most of the countries but despite regulations, norms and standards that are improving, territories carry an essential part of the response to the climate challenge and energy transition by enforcing regulation and mobilizing the local stakeholders, experts, urban agencies, architects, construction companies, associations, NGOs and the grand public.  

The Climate and Energy Information Service is a tool serving territories to implement the energy transition by involving such stakeholders at the territorial scale.

Based on its experience in the development and technical animation of Energy Climate Information Service in France and Tadjikistan, Geres supported the creation of the first Energy Information Center in Morocco (Chefchacouen), and  initiated in 2017 an international working group on Climate Energy Information Services (SIEC) with Moroccan, French and Tunisian organizations. Following this work, several territories have set up their SIEC (Tata and Oujda in Morocco) and some others have SIEC in progress (Tunisia, Tanger Tetouan Region).

The presentations and discussions will emphasize the key issues in the Mediterranean context of raising awareness among different audiences (users, general public) about the energy transition in order to contribute to empowerment on these topics and to behavior change. In the lack of dedicated mechanism at the national level, the implementation of “SIEC” is part of proactive approaches emerging from the territories. The “SIEC” Toolbox includes numerous documentary resources from existing SIEC and also from partners, and other organizations and communities which participated in the discussions (webinars, meetings, training) throughout the project.

This webinar presentations will build on existing experiences of cooperation at international and regional level in the field of the development of SIECs and will contribute to enriching it. It will provide technical information and guidance (toolbox) to facilitate decision-making process by public authorities in order to improve their expertise in planning and implementation of such services in their respective country. It can also enable to discuss the involvement and commitment of national agencies to promote such initiatives.

Agenda:

• Welcome Address, Alicia Tsitsikalis, ADEME
• Energy issues in the Mediterranean area, data on domestic consumption and greenhouse gas emissions Kamel Sadki, Territories, energy project manager, Geres 
• Historical review of the SIEC in Mediterranean countries, Isabelle Gasquet, Energy efficiency project manager – CLER, and Kamel Sadki

Coming dates and topics are listed below:

• 18 January 2024 from 10:00 to 11:30 – Cooling cities and buildings – challenges and solutions for urban management
• January 2024 (TBD) – Energy & Climate City Planning, financing and networking – A key for territorial action