Swedish experiences with climate contracts contribute to EU initiatives

The climate contracts involve cities, municipalities and government agencies setting common objective for their climate work. They then experiment with governance innovation – which is about renewing and improving society's processes for governance, management and organisation – and various system-wide climate measures together with business and academia.

Swedish successes and challenges with climate contracts

The report "Klimatkontrakt – a governance innovation for the EU Cities Mission" discusses how climate contracts have worked as a tool. It also describes the successes of Swedish cities, and talks about obstacles and challenges.

- The Swedish experiences of climate change adaptation at the local level, and of system innovation and governance innovation, contribute to policy development and learning. Among other things, Sweden has contributed to the EU initiative Cities Mission through this, says Nannan Lundin, Chief Analyst at Strategic strategic analysis at Vinnova. She has written the report, with funding from many colleagues at Vinnova.

Innovation and collaboration necessary for climate transition in cities

Cities Mission is one of several major initiatives to reduce cities' greenhouse gas emissions being made at the EU level and in individual member states. Nannan Lundin emphasizes that innovations and cross-sectoral collaboration that change large social systems, such as energy, transport and food systems, are needed to cope with the climate transition. But transitions of large social systems are very complex, and cities need to address both obstacles and practical challenges in the change processes.

"The obstacles are not only technical and economic, but also structural, institutional and cultural. We must overcome these difficulties, while at the same time implementing rapid and comprehensive support measures," says Nannan Lundin.