On November 29-30, the joint regional conference of "Covenant of Mayors" and the "EU4Climate" EU-UNDP project was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, to mark the 10th anniversary of the EU Covenant of Mayors in the Eastern Partnership region.

With over 200 representatives of central and municipal government representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and the EU Member States, the conference sought to discuss the key achievements reached and the main challenges encountered by signatory cities in the frames of the Initiative, as well as energy and climate policy implementation practices in the municipal context in both EU and Eastern Partnership countries.

Within the event, a regional workshop was hosted by EU4Climate project, to discuss the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and low-emission development strategies on local and regional levels.

The Comparative analysis, designed within the Project, on developing “Long-Term Climate Strategies in the EU Eastern Partnership countries” was presented to the participants. The Comparative analysis focuses on the progress that the EaP countires have made in the implementation of low emission strategies and policy development, the national ambitions and specifics of local conditions. 

In Armenia, starting from 2018, in the frames of the Program on energy efficient retrofits of residential buildings, the thermal retrofit of about 100 buildings has been performed with the support of UNDP in Armenia.

As a model, the participants of the event were introduced with the details of technical, technological solutions and financial mechanisms applied in 6 residential and 2 public buildings in the city of  Stepanavan, Armenia. The key achievements as a result of thermal retrofit of buildings were highlighted, in particular, the decrease in consumption of thermal energy by about 3 times, the reduction of heating and cooling costs by 40-60, the increase of the market value of the apartments in those buildings by 10-15, as an additional benefit, and the reduction of  greenhouse gas emissions approximately to 600 t CO₂  per year. 

Afterwards, the Q/A session followed during which the participants raised the series of questions of concern, showing high interest in the technical solutions applied in the buildings, the good practices and the ways of awareness raising of the population on the benefits of energy efficiency retrofit in the buildings.

Presenations