EU Climate Action Academy, Launched in September 2024, the Academy is the EU's digital knowledge hub on climate change and how to act, brought to you by the European Climate Change Pact. The Academy is designed to build knowledge and awareness about climate change and the steps we can all take to help fight it. The free platform offers informative courses and resources, interactive events and practical tools for taking action.

This toolkit provides you with materials to spread the word about the EU Climate Action Academy and enable your friends, family and colleagues to get involved in the fight against climate change. (More on climate-pact.europa.eu)

Net-zero energy homes use natural energy sources and are designed to consume less energy and as such are considered important in the fight against climate change. To be considered a passive house, a building must meet the following criteria:

1. Energy consumption for space heating must not exceed 15 kWh per square meter of net living area (treated floor area) per year or 10 W per square meter of peak consumption.

In climates where active cooling is required, the energy consumption requirement for space cooling roughly matches the higher heating requirements, with an additional contribution for dehumidification.

2. Renewable primary energy consumption from renewable sources (PER according to the PHI method) – the total energy to be used for all domestic applications (heating, hot water and domestic electricity) must not exceed 60 kWh per square meter of treated floor area per year for a Passive House Classic.

3. Airtightness – maximum 0.6 air changes per hour at a pressure of 50 Pascals (ACH50), as verified by on-site pressure testing (in both pressurized and unpressurized conditions).

4. Thermal comfort must be met for all living spaces in both winter and summer, with no more than 10 % hours in a given year being above 25 °C.

Passive House buildings are planned, optimized and verified using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP).

All of the above criteria are achieved through intelligent design and implementation of the five passive house principles:

1. Design without thermal bridges

2. Top-notch windows

3. Ventilation with heat recovery

4. Quality insulation

5. Airtight construction

The following five basic principles apply when building passive houses:

1. Thermal insulation

All opaque building elements of the external envelope of the house must be very well insulated. For most cold and warm climates this means a heat transfer coefficient (U-value) of maximum 0.15 W/(m²K), i.e. maximum 0.15 watts are lost per degree of temperature difference and per square meter of external surface.

2. Windows for passive houses

Window frames must be well insulated and fitted with low-energy glass filled with argon or krypton to prevent heat transfer. For most cold and warm climates this means a U-value of 0.80 W/(m²K) or less, with g-values around 50 % (g-value = total solar transmittance, the proportion of solar energy available to the room).

3. Heat recovery from ventilation

The key is effective ventilation with heat recovery, which enables good indoor air quality and saves energy. In a passive house, at least 75 % of heat from the exhaust air is transferred back to the fresh air using a heat exchanger.

4. Airtightness of the building

Uncontrolled air leakage through gaps must be less than 0.6 air changes per hour during a pressure test at 50 Pascal (in both pressurized and unpressurized conditions).

5. Absence of thermal bridges

All edges, corners, connections and transitions must be planned and implemented with great care to avoid thermal bridges. Thermal bridges that cannot be avoided must be minimized as much as possible.

Spring

which poses a threat to rising sea levels and water shortages. New study published in the journal Nature reveals that global glaciers lost an average of 273 ± 16 gigatons per year from 2000 to 2023. This melting contributes to the increase (more…)

SUPER-i project, funded by Horizon 2020, has developed a comprehensive tool to combat energy poverty in Europe. The tool integrates technical analyses, environmental impact assessments and innovative financial mechanisms. It offers concrete recommendations and solutions for increasing energy efficiency in Denmark, Italy and Slovenia through the SUPER-i portal. It focuses on building retrofits, renewable energy sources and greenhouse gas emission reduction. The aim is to provide stakeholders with the knowledge and tools needed to improve energy access and sustainable development. Spring

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Glossary of key terms 

• Energy poverty: A situation where households do not have sufficient access to reliable, affordable and modern energy services to meet their basic needs.
• Holistic approach: A comprehensive approach that takes into account the interconnected aspects of a problem and combines different strategies to solve it. In the case of SUPER-i, technical, environmental and financial aspects.
• Sustainability: The ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In the context of energy, it refers to the use of resources and technologies that minimize environmental impact.
• Retrofitting: Modernization of existing buildings or systems to improve their energy efficiency.
• Greenhouse gas emissions: Gases released into the atmosphere that contribute to global warming and climate change.
• Microfinance: Providing small loans or financial services to individuals or groups who do not have access to traditional banking services.
• Public-Private Partnership (PPP): A form of cooperation between the public and private sectors to finance, build, and operate infrastructure projects or public services.
• Scalability: The ability of a solution or system to be implemented on a larger scale or in other contexts.
• Stakeholder: A person, group, or organization that has an interest in or is affected by a project or activity.

This document, “A Water Resilience Strategy”, is a position paper by Water Europe (WE) aimed at supporting innovation, research and development of water technologies in Europe. The document highlights the need (more…)

Clean Industrial Deal is a roadmap for the EU's competitiveness and decarbonisation. The aim is to transform European industry with the aim of achieving a sustainable and resilient economy by 2030. (more…)

Global warming likely affects regional droughts across Eurasia. The finding has implications for understanding climate change and the need to adapt to new drought-related risks. (more…)

The Climate Watch platform provides data and insights on climate policies, emissions trends and nationally determined contributions (NDCs), helping to track progress towards meeting global climate commitments.

It represents a highly valuable resource for the Climate Pact community and beyond, offering comprehensive data on climate policies and emissions trends in real time. (More on climatewatchdata.org)

Publication “Youth on the Move for Climate Action!” is a compilation of youth initiatives in agriculture that address the impacts of climate change. It was created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in 2019. (more…)

The E-Room platform was designed to understand, measure and combat energy poverty. The E-Room platform provides an overview of the structural and socio-economic factors that cause energy poverty, such as low energy efficiency of buildings, labour market inefficiencies and limited access to financial, social and information resources.

Key points about E-Room:

• Energy poverty metrics are categorized into two primary approaches: questionnaire-based (based on energy consumption surveys) and expenditure-based (based on household energy expenditure data).
• Energy efficiency plays a key role in reducing energy poverty.
• E-Room uses data from Eurostat to show trends in SUPER-i partner countries. For example, United Kingdom shows almost twice as many households having trouble keeping warm compared to Slovenia, but Slovenia has three times as many households with arrears on their bills.
• The E-Room provides a space for stakeholders to access relevant data, share ideas, and collaborate on solutions to alleviate energy poverty.
• The SUPER-i project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101028220.
• More information about E-Room can be found online.

Spring

Climate change, which has become one of the most pressing global issues in recent decades, is most evident in the Arctic. The rapid melting of Arctic ice is not only accelerating global (more…)

A Spanish scientific expedition has discovered columns of gas rising from the seabed. Geologists are also warning of the possibility of huge landslides that could generate tsunamis. A team of Spanish scientists exploring the Antarctic seabed has detected “massive emissions” of methane, a gas with a global warming potential about 30 times greater than carbon dioxide (CO₂). Scientists aboard a ship Sarmiento de Gamboa observed methane plumes up to 700 meters long and 70 meters wide in the ocean, geologists Ricardo León and Roger Urgeles, the expedition leaders, said in a statement to EL PAÍS. These previously unknown emissions could potentially represent an environmental bomb for the planet's climate. (MANUEL ANSEDE, more at english.elpais.com)

This one study deals with changes in permafrost depending on carbon dioxide removal options (zero or negative emissions) and its role in climate change. An Earth model is used to simulate emissions under zero and negative emissions (more…)

Global warming will exacerbate conflicts, hunger and migration around the world, with increasing risks for Europe. According to a groundbreaking report by the German government, global warming poses an existential threat to the European Union.  (more…)

This document discusses how businesses are involved in early warning systems (EWS) and how they can enhance their effectiveness. EWS are crucial for protecting lives and property from extreme weather events and are increasingly important due to climate change, (more…)

This interactive infographic shows what the future could look like in 20 to 30 years – in two scenarios: one with determined climate protection and the other in which everything remains as it is. The aim is to make (more…)

European Commission in its second syndicated transaction in 2025, it issued EUR 11 billion of EU bonds, divided into EUR 6 billion for a 7-year bond (maturity December 2031) and EUR 5 billion for a 25-year green bond (more…)

The Greenland ice sheet currently covers more than 1.7 million square kilometers, making it the largest freshwater reservoir in the Northern Hemisphere. It has lost more than a trillion tons of ice since the 1980s, with the rate of melting increasing sixfold in the past decade. A recent study revealed that an average of 30 million tons of ice is currently being lost every hour.

Melting ice is causing sea levels to rise and changes in ocean salinity, affecting both the marine ecosystem and coastal communities, with a predicted sea level rise of 7 meters if the ice sheet completely melts. Research published in The Cryosphere has identified a tipping point at which ice loss could become irreversible, leading to the complete melting of Greenland. This tipping point is associated with a global temperature increase of 3.4°C, with the current average temperature in 2024 exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

The researchers found that topography and elevation play a key role in the ice mass balance. If the rate of melting exceeds the isostatic adjustment of the landscape, almost complete loss of Greenland's ice sheet could occur. In addition, ice loss reduces the surface albedo, which increases the absorption of solar radiation and accelerates melting.

The study also highlighted the importance of the western edge of the Greenland ice sheet, which can stabilize the entire ice sheet if it remains in a coastal area with high topography. Maintaining this edge is key to preventing complete loss of the ice sheet.

Researchers warn that climate change is bringing us closer to tipping points, and it is therefore essential to continue efforts to mitigate climate change to prevent dangerous temperature thresholds from being crossed. Spring

The international community has set itself an ambitious goal: to update national emission reduction plans by February 10, 2025, thereby accelerating the fight against climate change. However, according to the latest (more…)

Study examines whether the recent year of global temperatures 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels signals an earlier exceedance of the Paris Agreement goals. (more…)