Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP) and the Climate Plans: new tools for local environmental planning

The climate change debate developed in the last years and especially the
evidence provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
and European Union reports about increasing temperature, have push the policymakers
and government to deal with climate protection policies.
In particular, the European Commission has promoted the “Covenant of Mayors”
in order to endorse the local authorities efforts to implement energy policies about
urban systems mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The research
presented here concerns the assessment of methods and techniques for the
land-use analysis and planning. Methods useful to promote the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions and the appropriate adaptation strategies.
The research aim is to verify in which conditions energy, environmental and
urban policies are able to promote the resilient territory development. The
research project meets the general objective to implement the "Climate-Energy
Package" (GUEE L 140 of 5 June 2009), implementing Directive 2009/28/EC on
the promotion of energy from renewable sources. In that way, it provides a
transferable methodological support, able to be used at regional level for the
development of the Climate and Energy Action Plan. All that is in a close relation
to spatial planning tools provided by the Regional Law 11/2004 in the Veneto
region. The research specific objective is the definition of a preliminary study for a
Local Action Plan for Climate (according to the EU model) in the Province of
Rovigo. That preliminary study has the task of programming specific actions to
improve efficiency of urban systems (including the development of guidelines for
planning technique) promoting the use of renewable energy from a perspective
that encourages local development.