Climate change in focus for further actions

The Commission on Environment held its first annual meeting in Liepaja on 7-9 March 2007. 30 participants from 13 UBC cities concentrated on the issue of climate change in the Baltic Sea Region. In the future extreme weather conditions will increase, and there will be more algal bloom if the temperatures rise, as Urmas Lips, the lead scientist at the Marine systems at the Tallinn University of Technology, explained.

The effects of climate change on the BSR cities included an example of flood that affected Pärnu, Estonia, and damaged the infrastructure in winter 2005. Many cities in the BSR have already gone from strategy to concrete measures. Örebro shared their experiences about breaking down national environmental objectives into concrete activities at the local level. This has included educating the citizens and cooperating with companies.

Erika Langdzina from REC Latvia pointed out the necessity of translating the practical measures in the cities into climate change terminology. The main challenge for the Commission is to find the right indicators, measures and tools on how to do this in the BSR cities, she said. Practical actions related to the climate change taken by the UBC members were provided in the presentations of ASTRA, BUSTRIP, MUE25 and SUSTAINMENT Projects.

The UBC cook book for climate change was initiated in a brainstorming session chaired by Guldbrand Skjönberg. The book will gather the practical adaptation and reduction measures related to climate change taken by the cities. All UBC cities will be invited to take part in the book, which is planned to be available by the end of 2007.

In the meeting, the name of the Environment and Agenda21 Secretariat was changed to Environment and Sustainable Development Secretariat - describing better the work that the Secretariat is carrying out. The participating cities identified a need to have a clearer mandate for the Commission acting on behalf of the UBC since the Commission on Environment is a strong and wanted/ well-known stakeholder in the European Sustainable Development arena.

The representatives of Mariehamn also proposed to set up a working group to look over the prerequisites of establishing Marine Reserves in the Baltic Sea. As a result, such a working group will start in this spring.