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30/04/2022

Jana Jebavá: Prague has a plan for the climate - Ekolist.cz

Photo | Jaromír Kavan / UnsplashAt the end of May, the Prague City Council approved the Climate Plan of the Capital City of Prague. with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions by 45% compared to 2010 and with a view to achieving climate neutrality in 2050. We can talk about the ambition of such a goal only with the awareness of the sad reality of climate policy in the Czech Republic, which is still practically in its infancy. stage. On the contrary, given the pace of climate change and international commitments, this goal must be considered an absolute minimum. We know ads are annoying. And we respect that you have them turned off :-) We will be happy if you support us differently.

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The pursuit of a long-term conceptual approach and the active role that the capital plays in it is to be welcomed: from a mere playground where various interest groups share influence and contracts, the city administration becomes a key player - in the fields of energy, mobility, waste management and, to a limited extent, territorial development. Through city-owned companies that are not just about generating profits, we can respond much better to the changing needs of the city in the 21st century and the interests of its people.

Although we have a number of partial comments on the Climate Plan, the main concern at the moment is that it does not just stay on paper - not because of the impracticability of the proposed projects or funding gaps, but because of a lack of political will. It is a strategic mistake that the Climate Plan has not been discussed in advance with either the opposition or the city districts. It will be the day-to-day decision-making at the level of local governments and also of future municipal coalitions, on which the success of Prague's climate policy depends.

Natural gas is not the answer

The output of the Climate Plan is 69 concrete measures, divided into three main areas - energy and buildings, sustainable mobility and the circular economy. The most important of these is the first, concerning electricity and heat. Prague's energy sector is currently dependent on fossil resources. It is here that it is possible to achieve the largest reduction in CO2 production (about 65% of total emission savings), with the aim of avoiding completely coal-free energy in 2030.

Therefore, Prague wants to become energy self-sufficient to a certain extent. Electricity is to be supplied primarily by photovoltaic panels on the roofs (about 20,000 buildings are expected by 2030), supplemented by other low-emission sources and the purchase of certified green electricity. A great benefit is the intention to establish a Prague energy community, which would fundamentally facilitate decentralized electricity generation for building owners.

Assets under the administration of the city, city districts and organizations should be completely included in the energy management system, which will help evaluate the effectiveness of various energy saving measures. However, the plan does not anticipate a reduction in total electricity consumption in Prague - due to population growth, the expected development of electromobility and increasing heating / cooling demands, consumption will increase. However, this trend is not sustainable in the long run and the update of the plan in the coming years should focus more on savings.

In terms of heating, according to the Climate Plan, Prague can cover up to 40% of consumption by using heat from the water that passes through the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. The rest is to be provided by low-emission sources in buildings which, in addition to biomethane and heat pumps, also count on natural gas (in quantities only about 20% less than current consumption). Although gas is to be used more efficiently (for both heat and electricity production) and technologies that produce much less CO2 and NO2 emissions, its use as a non-renewable fossil resource is problematic and must necessarily be temporary. It is therefore essential that investments in the modernization of the heating system do not fix short-term solutions and do not hinder the transition to renewable sources in this sector as well.

It currently supplies heat to Praguers on the basis of long-term contracts between Veolia (this multinational group bought Pražská teplárenská from Daniel Křetínský last year), mainly from the coal-fired power plant in Mělník, owned by ČEZ. The question is whether the capital will be able to break out of these relations and become an independent producer of thermal energy. However, experience from cities such as Hamburg and Vienna confirms that only in-house production will enable the municipality to reduce its carbon footprint sufficiently.

Build from recyclable materials

The climate plan envisages an increase in the population of Prague to 1.4 million in 2030, and therefore also takes into account construction development. It correctly sets out the general principles that new development should meet: densification of the city instead of spreading, direct connection to public transport, mixed function of buildings - ie housing, work and services together, to create a so-called short-distance city.

Since 2025, the plan recommends building only zero-emission buildings (intended for buildings of a certain size) and at the same time starting to include emissions from the entire life cycle of the building materials used - from production to disposal - in their carbon footprint. CO2 emissions produced by the construction industry are included in the overall Prague balance only in terms of energy consumed in construction, not in the production of materials. At the same time, this is a very important item - suffice it to say that if the average carbon footprint of a Prague citizen included emissions in purchased products (such as cars) and built buildings, they would increase it from 7.2 to 10 tons of CO2 per year.

Reducing this total carbon footprint of buildings would then solve the second problem of the construction industry, which is sustainability: today 90% of natural resources are used in construction, which is hardly recycled, and construction waste after demolition accounts for 78% of total waste production in Prague. . Climatically responsible construction thus means finding new solutions for materials and processes that will comply with the principles of circular economics. However, these facts are known and at least since 2019 also quantified in a circular scan, which Prague had processed. It is a pity that the Climate Plan no longer comes up with a concrete proposal for a solution, instead of a general statement.

Due to the fact that municipal flats are currently practically not built, Prague must find ways to enforce the above-mentioned urban principles and climate standards in negotiations with developers. Until September 30, 2021, the City Council has the City of Prague to submit a proposal for the rules of climate-responsible construction. If the proposal is not bold enough or fails to be put into practice, the spatial development climate plan will remain at the level of timid recommendations.

The circuit and the new runway will worsen emissions

In transport solutions, the climate plan builds on the existing Strategic Plan and the Sustainable Mobility Plan, to which it adds further measures to reduce fossil fuel consumption by at least a quarter by 2030. The way to do this is mainly to replace traditional fuels with alternative ones, especially biomethane. The most specific commitment is to replace 75% of the Transport Company's bus fleet, today mostly with diesel engines, electric or biogas trucks.

The plan states that reducing the intensity of passenger car traffic, which is constantly growing, is key to reducing emissions. However, direct measures in this area are limited to the regulation of paid parking zones and a cautious proposal for the introduction of tolls, which has been developed in several non-public variants. A 15% decrease in traffic performance is expected from the entrance fee to the center, which AutoMat, for example, considers to be completely unrealistic. Parking is solved only in connection with the zones, not in the context of territorial development. However, without restrictions on surface parking and a change in building standards to a minimum number of parking spaces in the construction of apartment buildings, people cannot be expected to be motivated to use carsharing, carpooling and other services to replace car ownership.

In addition, the climate plan completely ignores the issue of large transport structures, in particular the completion of the inner city ring road, which will certainly increase traffic volumes and thus emissions. Despite the considerable amount of emissions caused by the construction itself, which the plan does not take into account at all.

The support of public transport focuses mainly on metro and rail transport and has a not very ambitious goal of keeping the share of public transport in total daily transport at 42%, which is already set out in the Sustainable Mobility Plan. The share of non-motorized transport, ie on foot or by bicycle, should increase: bicycle transport currently accounts for only 1-2% of total transport performance, with plans to increase it to 7% (in season). Compared to metropolises such as Copenhagen (28%), it is still sadly small, but in Prague conditions this goal also presupposes the construction of a new safe infrastructure - ie separate cycle lanes or cycle paths. The data suggest that less comfortable measures integrated into the operation (cycle lanes) are not enough for more people to reach for the bike to work or school.

Priority No. 5 in the area of mobility is the transformation of air transport. The expected 15% reduction in CO2 emissions in this sector is expected to occur more or less spontaneously, following higher fuel efficiency and new propulsion technologies. Prague's ambition is only to "start a dialogue" and "act indirectly" at Prague Airport so that, for example, by reducing airport fees, it favors flights with lower fuel consumption. At the same time, the capital has much stronger negotiating tools: it plays a crucial role in approving the change in the zoning plan, which will allow the construction of a new runway and thus increase the airport's capacity. However, the Climate Plan is silent about the new orbit.

Incineration is not recycling

Prague has already come a long way in the area of waste management and resource reuse - primarily through cooperation with the Institute for Circular Economics and the creation of the already mentioned circular scan in 2018–2019. The ambitious target of the climate plan - to recycle 60% of municipal waste in 2030 instead of today's 27% - stems from European legislation and is therefore no surprise. We may ask why we are no longer in the phase of implementation of individual measures and the Plan is still talking about assigning the creation of a strategy for circular economy in Prague.

Waste sorting is to be significantly improved by a new sorting line for plastics, metals and tetrapacks, which will eliminate the worry of finding the appropriate containers, the placement of colored bins in homes and support the collection of biowaste. Biowaste, which today accounts for as much as 40% of mixed waste, is key to the biogas plant project, which is to produce biomethane used as fuel. However, it is not very clear from the climate plan how the city wants to achieve better sorting of biowaste. All organic waste serves as food for biogas - food scraps, spent food, etc. However, pure plant waste is better composted to produce organic matter that can be returned to the soil. Therefore, if Prague wants to focus on the collection of gastro-waste, it should also give more support to domestic and community composting. Gastro-waste collection has been piloted in Prague 5, 6, and 7 since last year and has its pitfalls - containers are heavier, Prague services do not want to load them into the house, they can smell despite the sealing lid, not everyone has a place to place them. However, the climate plan does not work with the project outputs and does not propose any specific measures in this direction. At the same time, it is quite certain that a mere information campaign will not be enough to better sort biowaste.

One of the 69 climate plan measures listed in the energy sector is to increase the capacity of the ZEVO Malešice incinerator. Reconstruction, which also includes the replacement of boilers with new ones with lower emissions, is already underway and the incinerator will soon have a capacity of almost 400 thousand. tons of waste per year. If Prague wants to meet its goal of recycling as much as 60% of municipal waste in 2030, it certainly does not need large capacities - it can of course also serve the Central Bohemian Region, but it has its own obligations in the area of waste recycling. As a measure to reduce CO2 emissions, this project does not make sense: combustion, of course, generates emissions, as do other waste products, the use of which is very problematic. The slag, which accounts for up to a quarter of the original volume of waste, currently ends up in landfills and highly toxic fly ash must be disposed of safely.

It's not just people who live in the city

A separate chapter consists of adaptation measures, which do not in themselves reduce CO2 emissions, but help mitigate the effects of climate change (especially summer heat and drought) on the city and its inhabitants. The climate plan follows on from the Adaptation Strategy and the Implementation Plan for 2020–2024, which contains 207 specific measures.

So the city can't lack strategies to prepare for climate change: tree planting plans, wastewater recycling for flushing, cleaning or irrigation, replacing surfaces with more permeable ones, rain gardens and other water-retaining treatments, green roofs and walls , installation of water elements, support of community gardens or greening of courtyards - all this must move from the level of pilot projects to the standard solution of public (and private) space modifications. On the positive side, these measures improve the quality of life in the city so clearly that they are usually agreed upon by representatives across the political spectrum.

Unfortunately, the chapter on adaptation completely ignores the problem of disappearing biodiversity, which is as burning in cities as in the wild. It is a mistake to look at the city exclusively from the perspective of man and his needs. The climate plan says nothing about protecting the city's wilderness, places that are attractive to insects, birds and small animals. At the same time, such places are usually very attractive for people.

While in the field of energy, the Climate Plan provides concrete and innovative solutions, the implementation of which will have a real impact on the amount of emissions produced, in other chapters it is often too timid and vague. There is thus a real danger that the ambition will end in political detail, while the trends of the last century will continue behind it all - the construction of the ring road and the new runway, the expansion of the incinerator or development projects in fields dependent on car traffic, which will devalue the overall result .