IPPCP: DRIVING CLIMATE ACTION THROUGH DATA
On 21 and 22 April, an in-person meeting of the IPPCP partners took place in Zaragoza, with an agenda focused on reviewing the current status of the project and analysing the main challenges that need to be addressed in order to achieve its objectives.
The IPPCP pilot project aims to address inefficiencies in the management of climate, energy, environmental and pollution data in urban sectors by establishing a robust data cooperation framework that optimises data collection and sharing, making it easier for cities to monitor and quantify their progress towards climate neutrality. It supports collaboration between public and private stakeholders and contributes to the objectives of the European Green Deal, particularly net-zero emissions and zero pollution.
The use case focuses on the creation of public-private data spaces in the cities Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Zaragoza (Spain) . These data spaces integrate data from different domains related to climate, energy, environment and pollution, creating a shared ecosystem for structured data cooperation. By combining and analysing data from these domains, the pilot improves the accuracy and reliability of emissions inventories and monitoring processes. This enables better tracking of urban emissions and supports the development of more effective climate policies and action strategies in both cities.
Although technical issues are no doubt complex to implement, the main concerns so far are related to governance and stakeholders’ understanding of what data spaces are and how they can help to improve emissions inventory performance and to facilitate the design of data driven policies to achieve climate neutrality. Often, these new solutions are viewed by industries required to report data as an additional burden, and they reject them. In this regard, raising awareness and providing training on public-private data spaces, how they work and the potential benefits for participating companies are key to overcoming this resistance.
On the other hand, all partners agreed that it is also not easy, within the context of organisations such as local councils, to implement innovative systems such as data spaces alongside existing technological infrastructure. In this regard, it is considered necessary to get a stable solution before integrating it into the organisation’s own structure, in order to mitigate risks and facilitate the testing process.
Finally, the feeling is that, since the project began, many decisions have had to be made without in-depth knowledge, and whilst many of the technical elements and components themselves are still under development. In this regard, it has been necessary to adopt a ‘learning by doing’ approach, sometimes having to retrace our steps to find a better alternative.
There are four months left until the project is completed, and certain technical aspects of the data spaces for both Ljubljana and Zaragoza need to be fine-tuned. It is also essential to strengthen communication with the key stakeholders regarding the development of the pilot project and to lay the foundations for a long-term relationship. Our main aim is to ensure that the results and knowledge gained through the IPPCP project are sustained and form part of the digitisation and data management strategy for both Ljubljana and Zaragoza.
