The cities of Alba Iulia, Bistrita, Brasov, Bucharest, Buzau, Constanta, Iasi, Oradea, Resita and Timisoara have been selected to become climate neutral by 2035, the national platform M100 announced on Tuesday.

In the coming years, these cities will receive support in the development of climate neutrality plans and will be financed to implement actions that will help them in the green transition.

The 10 cities were chosen by an international jury made up of urban planning and urban development specialists, in a competition held between June and September 2024.

"Alba Iulia, Bistrita, Brasov, Bucharest, Buzau, Constanta, Iasi, Oradea, Resita and Timisoara are the cities that will be supported to reduce their carbon emissions until 2035 and to transform into smart, green and friendly cities. The 10 cities thus join the three cities in Romania that have already started the race towards climate neutrality - Cluj Napoca, Bucharest's sector 2 and Suceava, being selected in the European Mission "100 smart and climate neutral cities" and which they have already taken important steps towards the green transition", reads the press release sent by M100.

The M100 mission is a mirror mission of the European one and aims to replicate the European policies at the national level and to help other Romanian cities to reach the carbon emission reduction targets assumed at the national level through the European Green Pact.

In the coming period, the 10 cities will develop, with the help of consultants from the M100 Climate City Contracts team, an action plan model developed at the European level to help them identify the individual solutions they need to implement in order to become climate neutral.

Later, through M100, cities will be able to apply for financing to implement the actions from the plans developed in areas such as: green energy, sustainability and smart mobility, circular economy, green governance etc.

The 10 cities will also learn from the experience of the three cities already included in the European Mission and will be able to become, in turn, examples of good practice for other Romanian cities.

"The interest shown by the Romanian cities that wanted to be part of the M100 Mirror Mission and the quality of the applications with which they entered the competition prove to us that the idea that UEFISCDI had in 2022, when it requested the Ministry of Research, Innovation and The agreement to establish M100 was correct. From the beginning, M100 was about providing the cities with the knowledge and financial resources needed to transition to climate neutrality. I congratulate the 10 cities selected in the M100 Mission and I look forward to starting work. I am convinced that the experience gained by them in the transition towards climate neutrality, as well as the innovative solutions developed, will make Romania a high-performing and internationally recognized actor from whom cities and countries will want to learn. The message M100 is also that 'no city is left behind.' We will encourage and support other local administrations that are determined to act to make their communities more sustainable - climate neutral and smart. Romanian cities need M100 and I am convinced that they are ready to act", said Adrian Curaj, general director of UEFISCDI, the institution that provides the general secretariat of M100.

The cities were selected following a process similar to the European one, and the applications received from the 16 participating cities impressed the members of the jury with the proposed innovative ideas.

The M100 Climate Neutrality Forum, which is taking place on October 29 and 30, in Bucharest, at the Mina Museum, is a unique initiative in Romania that brings together for the first time mayors of selected cities, representatives of the Presidential Administration and the Government, ministers, representatives of the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Net Zero Cities, Dark Matter Lab, together with representatives of the non-governmental, academic and private sector, as well as independent experts under a common theme: supporting Romanian cities in the transition to climate neutrality.

In this context, the Forum for Climate Neutrality M100 is offering, for two days (October 29-30), a dialogue platform for identifying solutions and financing opportunities, opens debates and presents examples of good practices through case studies from Romanian cities but also the partner ones from Norway and Iceland: Stavanger, Trondheim and Reykjavik.

The M100 Climate Neutrality Forum is organized under the auspices of the M100 National Hub, coordinated at the interministerial level, and is part of the project "Towards Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities through Mutual Learning, Engagement and Capacity-Building," financed by EEA and Norwegian Grants within the Fund for Bilateral Relations, and implemented under the auspices of the M100 HUB, through UEFISCDI as program operator in partnership with Urbanize Hub - Local Development Institute Association, Romanian Order of Architects (OAR), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Nordic Edge and RANNIS - Icelandic Center of Research.AGERPRES (RO - editor: Mariana Nica; EN - editor: Bogdan Gabaroi)