Net Zero - Derry & Strabane - From Ambition to Action

Project partners from local authority, academia, climate consultancy and Northern Ireland climate specialists will work with local stakeholders including business, industry, communities and public sector to;

'Realise the ambition of a net zero climate resilient City & District by 2045 through transformational systems innovation including SMART climate action plans underpinned by place-based insights, collaboration and capacity building.'

We will address the following systemic barriers:

* Lack of partnership working & collaborative structures
* Absence of agreed climate policies
* Minimal accessible geospatial climate data & information available
* Lack of climate change awareness and understanding
* No coherent climate action plan
* Limited finance and understanding of economic business case for climate action
* No effective measurement of climate action
* Lack of resources and capacity to address the challenges (Staff time, expertise, available budget for consultancy support)

Objectives:

* Enable effective collaboration through appropriate governance structures & policy frameworks
* Provide FAIR place-based system insights ensuring knowledge based climate action
* Increase stakeholder climate change awareness and capacity for action
* Provide effective delivery frameworks through development of a SMART climate action plan and project pipeline
* Identify the economic & finance models necessary to achieve our climate ambition
* Innovatively address non-technical barriers within the Derry & Strabane City Deal programme to unlock potential adoption at scale solutions for heat, power and green infrastructure.

Derry City & Strabane District Council declared a climate emergency 2019 followed by a Pledge to: Ensure that all strategic and policy decisions and budgets will immediately fall in line with the shift to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 while also ensuring that the Derry City and Strabane District Council area as far as practically possible is prepared for and resilient to the effects of climate change. Council have also committed to a number of national and international declarations. Our partnership will develop new and innovative systems for Derry & Strabane applying best practice learning and iterative place based programme delivery to create new forms of governance, policy, citizen engagement, cooperation, and financing to deliver real term climate action. Our City Deal programme in particular the Strabane Town Centre Regeneration project will serve as a deep learning demonstration project to apply the system changes required to deliver climate action.

Project partners will deliver six core work packages as follows:

* Governance & Policy
* Data & Information
* Capacity Building
* Action Planning
* Finance
* Pilot Project -- Derry & City Strabane City Deal