The “Talk series – Porto Towards Carbon Neutrality 2030” is an initiative organized by the Porto City Council, which includes 10 sessions of clarification and debate related to the topics of sustainability, decarbonization, and climate transition in the context of the carbon neutrality of cities. The seventh session took place last Thursday, June 29, at the Porto Innovation Hub, and the theme was “The challenges of a just transition.”
Rúben Fernandes, Executive Administrator of Águas e Energia do Porto, was the moderator of the event, which was attended by Maria do Rosário Palha, Senior Sustainability Manager of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Mariana Almeida, Lawyer of the Legal and Economic Department of DECO; and Isabel Azevedo, Director of the Energy Unit of INEGI.
Each of the speakers had a chance to speak, followed by a space for debate and clarification with the audience.
At the opening of the session, Rúben Fernandes began by addressing the urgency of decarbonizing the economy and the opportunities and challenges associated with this decarbonization: “Obviously there may be opportunities for some, but there will certainly be inequities that are generated for other segments of the population, other territories, other activities, such as problems associated with loss of competitiveness, loss of wealth, of jobs, and it is in this context that the concept of a fair transition emerges.”
In this regard, the representative of Águas e Energias do Porto explained that, in the context of municipalities, in order to achieve this fair transition, it is essential to implement a set of public policies that leave no one behind, that create prosperity for everyone and that protect different segments of the population. “When we are in a territory that wants to commit to a more accelerated decarbonization process and wants to achieve goals more quickly, all of this becomes more pressing. And this is the case with the municipality of Porto,” he added.
“At the national level, we have a European financial envelope in the order of 23 billion euros and we have a Fund for Just Transition that does not reach 250 million euros. To aggravate this situation, this fund was pre-allocated long before the programs were designed, meaning, it is not a fund that is available for any agent to compete. This fund has already been allocated to three regions of the country – Médio Tejo, Alentejo litoral and Matosinhos -, therefore, it is already known which interventions will be supported and there is no agent in the country that can compete for it now,” said Rúben Fernandes, warning about one of the challenges of this transition.
Contributions focused on energy poverty
Isabel Azevedo, Director of the Energy Unit of INEGI, was in charge of the first intervention of the event, in which she explained that INEGI acts as a bridge between the university and businesses/industries or even other entities, such as city councils or other entities and political decision-makers.
“Our goal here, in this component of the transition, is to create methodologies, tools, studies that can support political decision-makers to be able to make a more informed decision, to understand if what they are doing is well done, if it is working, understand what is needed and identify priorities. And, in the component of energy poverty, our goal has been, first, in a component more of identification and characterization of what a vulnerable consumer is and what is energy poverty and we do this in a more macro way, looking at statistical data,” she said.
After a more macro analysis, INEGI moves to a more individualized level of action. At this point, Isabel Azevedo presented one of the projects they have in this area: “There is a project we have now, where also the Porto City Council and the Porto Energy Agency are involved, through which we monitor the Agra do Amial neighborhood. That is, we first conducted a survey of the inhabitants to understand the conditions of housing, socio-economic conditions, perception of comfort, energy consumption habits, and then we monitor some houses, with some diversity, where we understand the thermal comfort and indoor air quality.”
This project revealed that, during December, January, and February, 90% of the monitored houses are below 18 degrees, which is considered the minimum temperature within the comfortable range. More specifically, during January and February, there are many houses between 10 and 15 degrees, “which is a temperature that goes far beyond and that can have other consequences, such as an increase in deaths during the winter, which is a reflection of this situation.”
To solve this problem, the INEGI representative stated that it is important to build capable buildings that are efficient in today’s climate, but that are also able to withstand climate changes without requiring an increase in the cost of energy for citizens. In addition, the promotion of energy literacy was another point mentioned as a solution by the director of the INEGI energy unit, who presented a project they have for this purpose.
“We have a project that tries to evaluate new ways of raising awareness, in order to change people’s behavior. It involves 100 houses in the Porto area, which are being monitored. Consumers have access to a digital application, in which we have a control group and a study group, where they keep receiving information. This is preliminary, but in the first study we did during the winter, there was virtually no difference between the control group and the group that had access to our advice. However, in recent months, we have been giving information about indoor air quality, and we give advice that often involves having to open or close windows, and in these cases, people react much more because it is something more immediate and easier. Therefore, we have to make the topic of energy more tangible and also achievable,” she warned.
Consumer Protection
In turn, Mariana Almeida, a lawyer in the Legal and Economic Department of DECO, spoke from the consumer’s point of view and their needs. “There is a fundamental problem here, which is the fact that the consumer is at the center of the energy transition, but in truth, they are not protected by public policies,” she began to say.
“When we talk about a vulnerable consumer, we are associating it with being economically vulnerable and all the public policies that are developed at this level, that is, they only protect the economically vulnerable consumer. But it’s important to start expanding horizons and redefining concepts because if we have legislation oriented to a vulnerability that is not only economic, we will be able to protect increasingly more consumers and create specific rules for different segments of vulnerability,” she explained.
The DECO official added that when she talks about vulnerability, she is referring to an energy illiteracy that is very present, not only by people with a low level of education. “In our studies, when we talk about energy literacy, it is often associated with whether a consumer knows how to read an invoice or not, but that is not energy literacy. Energy literacy implies that the consumer understands their energy profile, how they use their equipment, understand whether they are efficient or not, understand the impact that the energy they consume will have on their bill. And, even though there is an awareness of the environmental impact, the greatest concern of consumers continues to be the cost of the bill at the end of the month. There must be a public policy segment oriented to this vulnerability.”
In addition to energy literacy, Mariana Almeida pointed out another problem associated with a just transition, which is related to digital literacy. “There are people who cannot apply for support because they are predominantly digital and there are no specific offices to help people apply. From the start, there are supports that are directed at segments of people who are economically vulnerable, but then do not have the capacity to respond digitally,” she said.
In this context, the DECO lawyer gave the example of the installation of solar panels, which has been promoted by various energy companies to their customers, however, there are situations where consumers acquire more panels than they really needed and “then find it strange to have a higher bill at the end of the month because the seller told them that with the installation of solar panels they would have a direct saving on the bill”. “It’s important that all of this is demystified so that the consumer feels empowered to join this energy transition,” she added.
With the aim of protecting consumers and alerting them to these realities, DECO created the STEP project (Solutions to combat Energy Poverty), included in a consortium with several EU countries, which were identified as those with the highest levels of energy poverty: “The goal was to provide this individualized energy advice to consumers, that is, through a questionnaire we channeled various sectors of the consumer’s life in the context of the energy profile, such as housing, from a contractual perspective, tariff option, equipment and, after the advice, try its monitoring to see if there was an adjustment of the recommendations that we gave to consumers”.
In total, with this project, DECO advised 5110 consumers, trained 3095 in workshops, trained 1120 technicians, sensitized 8445 consumers, and also demanded the implementation of 22 measures, both at the European and national level. “This project inspired us and led us to want to implement the Housing and Energy Counter, which is being implemented now, starting in 2023, in various municipalities. The idea of this counter is to create a specific office, where the consumer can go and have personalized, customized assistance and have that monitoring,” she shared.
Knowing how to communicate to involve the consumer, creating true mechanisms and incentives for the consumer, adjusting the message and language used in regulation, inspecting new areas associated with the energy transition, establishing user committees for the local energy transition, changing the legal paradigm in relation to consumer legal relations, and adopting multidisciplinary policies were the solutions presented by the official for a just transition.
Gulbenkian Funds Various Sustainable Projects
Maria do Rosário Palha, Senior Sustainability Manager at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, was the last speaker of this session, highlighting all the projects that Gulbenkian has been funding in the context of climate change. “In the next five years, sustainability and equity guide our strategy. The Gulbenkian Sustainability Program is a support program for social organizations, primarily in Portugal and the United Kingdom, and supports organizations that carry out projects that mobilize people on a large scale, especially those most affected by climate change,” she declared.
This program has four axes of action, namely the involvement of all people in climate action, the change in narrative by the need to find more effective ways of communicating these issues so that people truly engage in climate action; demonstrating the benefits of fair transition relationships and nature-based, and leadership by example.
The “Transition Project” is one of the projects funded by Gulbenkian. It is a pilot project being implemented in Setúbal, operating in a repurposed old maritime container, and has an expert from the local energy agency to provide information to people about thermal comfort, about reducing energy expenses, about the type of financing available, about how to fill out applications to access these funds. “The service space is mobile, that is, it can be moved within the municipality according to needs to provide a local response, and this is a huge advantage,” she assured.
Another project funded by Gulbenkian is “Além Risco” which, according to Maria do Rosário Palha, “aimed to enhance the adaptation capacity of the people of Central Alentejo to the effect of heat waves on public health, through the planting of 50,000 trees in urban clusters”. Thirteen municipalities and many citizens participated in this project, as well as several schools.
Finally, she also spoke about the “Gulbenkian Water” project, which arose from the challenge of water availability in Portugal, which is aggravated by climate change. “The agricultural sector has been the most affected by this. In Portugal, this sector uses 75% of the water, and this happens to compensate for the lack of rain. We therefore decided that this project would be carried out with the agricultural sector, and we are financing demonstration projects in the field of good water use practices,” she concluded.
