April the 3rd, 2024 – The Croatian climate change adaptation fund, worth 17 million euros in total, hopes to strengthen the resilience of urban environments to climatic alterations.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency has published a public call for co-financing measures. These measures regard the Croatian climate change adaptation fund, created in order to strengthen the resilience of the nation’s urban environments in the fact of damaging climatic changes. It is worth 17 million euros in total, and is intended for local units for resilience projects in the country’s cities and municipalities.
The public call is being carried out under the slogan “The green side of the street/Zelena strana ulice”, the aforementioned fund announced this week.
The director of the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency, Luka Balen, pointed out that in the two years of implementation of this programme, which is being implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, the Fund has already supported 122 projects for which it has secured the euro equivalent of 28 million kuna.
“This year, a further 17 million euros have been available, and it will be possible to get 350,000 euros for an individual project. At the same time, large cities and counties will be able to apply for co-financing up to two projects”, explained Balen when discussing the Croatian climate change adaptation fund.
He pointed out that the “greening” of urban areas requires very thoughtful planning and provides an excellent opportunity for changing, or refining city views.
“It also means that we’re looking at a real, concrete infrastructural measure. That will ensure less warming and make our cities more pleasant to live in, as well as more resistant to all the challenges that we can expect due to climate change,” the director of the fund explained.
Urban greening, i.e. planting trees in urban areas, is one of the best ways we can ensure better air quality and the quality of the health of residents.
However, in addition to urban greening, the fund revealed that local units can direct funds into projects spanning different areas. These could be greening canopies at public transport stops, the construction of public taps with drinking water, projects involving urban gardens, the construction of pedestrian and bike paths, systems for collecting rainwater, as well as projects regarding public information and education about climate change.
All of this together forms the basis for thinking about a different sort of Croatian urbanism and is aimed at reducing the risk of the enormous damage that can be caused by climate change. This damage is already visible to us today. It’s therefore important to do everything we can to slow climate change down and reduce its impact to a minimum, concluded the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency.
