The Human Security Paradigm and Cosmopolitan Democracy

This paper discusses the relation between the human security paradigm and the cosmopolitan democracy scenario as models for humanizing and changing the current international system and transforming it in a global security and development system centered on the individual rather than on the nation state. The main idea for which I argue is that the human security paradigm and the changes it determined in international relations (especially through the responsibility to protect principle) are compatible with the cosmopolitan democracy scenario for changing and transforming the current international system

THE HARMONISATION OF LEGISLATION ON COMBATTING TAX EVASION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Combating tax evasion is part of the Lisbon Strategy. Tax fraud created a significant distortion in the functioning of the internal market and prevented fair competition.In its resolution of 2th of September 2008 on a coordinated strategy to improve the fight against fiscal fraud (2008/2033 (INI)) the European Parliament stressed that the Member States cannot combat cross-border fraud in isolation and called on the Commission to propose mechanisms to promote cooperation between Member States.This paper aims to analyse the main mechanisms to combat the tax evasion at the European level and, also, the changes that our country had to make in the field of legislation in order to achieve the EU standard on the fight against tax evasion

An approach with a Business-as-Usual scenario projection to 2020 for the Covenant of Mayors from the Eastern Partnership

The methodology for the Covenant of Mayors – East needed to be extended with a business-as-usual projection of the emissions for 2020, from which national coefficients for the previous years are derived. In this way, signatories will be able to do their emission inventories of the present situation, and estimate which their emissions in 2020 will be. Then they will commit to an emission reduction target based on their projections of emissions for 2020 following the business-as-usual scenario. The factors are country-specific, calculated both for CO2 and CO2eq (CO2, CH4, N2O using the GWP100metric) in order to allow signatories to choose the approach they prefer. Moreover an urban dimension is provided, providing a margin on the projections.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy: Default emission factors for local emission inventories – Version 2017

The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative, hereafter called “Covenant” or “CoM”, brings together local and regional authorities voluntarily committing to develop and implement a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) containing measures to reduce their energy (and non-energy) related Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Within the CoM 2010 guidebook ‘How to develop a Sustainable Energy Action Plan’ (Bertoldi et al., 2010), Part II focuses on the compiling of local GHG emission inventories in the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). This technical report provides an update of the CoM default emission factors, reported in Part II of the CoM 2010 guidebook and subsequently revised (CoM, 2014; CoM, 2016), together with information on the methodologies, assumptions and data sources, as well as recommendations for their application to the calculation of CO2 and GHG (CO2, CH4 and N2O) emissions due to local use or production of energy (fuel, municipal wastes, renewable energy sources (RES), electricity). As for previous versions, the CoM default emission factors - Version 2017 (expressed in tCO2 or CO2 equivalent/MWh), to be used to estimate standard direct emissions are the IPCC (2006) default factors for stationary combustion for the energy carriers and RES, the most commonly used in the European Union. The CoM default emission factors to estimate local emissions using the Life Cycle Assessment approach, which also includes emissions from the entire supply chain, have been updated using the lastest version (v3.2) of the European Life Cycle Database, as well as other Life Cycle databases and literature reviews. For indirect emissions from local consumption of electricity, national and EU annual factors have been calculated for the 1990 to 2013, using an updated methodological approach and an extended set of energy data (IEA, 2016). The GHG emission factors (in tCO2-eq/MWh) have been estimated using the 100-year time horizon Global Warming Potential factors from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007), which are the ones currently recommended to the EU countries for the national inventory reporting, in the frame of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Regular updates of CoM default emission factors are foreseen for the future. New CoM signatories are therefore recommended to use the latest version of Annex I available from the Covenant on-line library . It is important to note is that the emission factors used to calculate emission inventories should be consistent for the entire implementation process of the SECAP. In particular, since more recent knowledge and technologies can give substantial changes, it is strongly recommended when opting for the use of CoM default emission factors, not to modify the ones applied to the Baseline Emission Inventory during the monitoring phase, in order to identify the trends and changes in local emissions that are due to local energy production and consumption. When selecting the CoM default emission factors, it is also important to ensure that they are appropriate to local fuel quality and composition. If local authorities prefer to use emission factors that better reflect the properties of the fuels used in their territory for the calculation and update of their local emission inventories, they are welcome to do so, when more country specific or local data are available and reliable.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Covenant of Mayors in Figures - 5-Year Assessment

After almost 5 years of activity, preliminary results of the projects may be highlighted. Up to mid-March 2013, 4654 municipalities signed the Covenant, for a total of 156.75 million inhabitants in EU27 (corresponding to more than 42% of the EU27 urban population) and a total of 182.30 million inhabitants in the whole project (corresponding to 33% of the urban population of the relative countries). Furthermore 24 municipalities with more than 1,000,000 of inhabitants signed the Covenant.Among these signatories, 2508 already submitted a Sustainable Energy Action Plan and a corresponding Baseline Emission Inventory, resulting in 1099 accepted Action Plans, covering 45,311,965 inhabitants. Although the minimum commitment was to reduce 20% of the current emissions, 699 signatories committed to reduce more than threshold, resulting in an estimated emission reduction in 2020 of 97,197 KtCO2-eq (which a calculation uncertainties of ± 1,796 KtCO2-eq due to the different approaches that signatories used to report their emission inventories). The CoM appeared very popular in the southern European countries. As such the total CoM emissions of the signatories in Italy and Spain are approaching the national total of CoM sectors for Italy according to EDGAR estimates. In Northern European countries the CoM could gain some more popularity. Even though in some countries, such as Italy and Spain the publicity for the CoM paid off and many signatories were registered, real GHG reductions are only starting. Many effort and engagement will be needed by the mayors to realize the projected reductions. The implementation of several GHG reduction measures takes time, depending on the measure. However, with the extension of the CoM eastwards (into the Newly Independent States) and southwards (into the North-African countries around the Mediterranean sea) the EU-27 should be a representative example.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Covenant of Mayors: Monitoring Indicators

Launched in 2008 by the European Commission, the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) is the mainstream European movement involving cities and towns in the development and implementation of local sustainable energy and climate policies. Covenant of Mayors' signatories can benefit from support at different levels: from European institutions to national and regional governments and to fellow signatories which share best practises through the CoM platform. Featured by multilevel governance models and bottom up actions, the CoM platform paves the way for local and regional governments to contribute to EU's climate and energy objectives. By signing up to the Covenant of Mayors, local authorities commit to submit: I. action plan: based on the inventory of energy consumptions/production and greenhouse gas emissions in the local authority's territory, identifies actions to be implemented for reaching the CO2 reduction target. II. monitoring reports: including status of the implementation of actions and - at least every fourth year - a monitoring inventory which allows to measure progress toward the targets set in the action plan1. As of September 2015, almost six thousand local authorities have signed the CoM, for a total of ca. 208 million inhabitants in the whole initiative. More than 4 500 local authorities have submitted an action plan (Sustainable Energy Action Plan) for a total of ca. 166 million. Out of these, 122 signatories, representing 3% of the signatories with an action plan, have submitted a monitoring report including inventories for a total ca. 11 million inhabitants. Monitoring inventories enable to track the evolution of GHG emissions in local authorities territories as well as changes in energy consumptions patterns, and to compare estimated impacts of the actions against actual results. This report illustrates main statistical indicators based on data provided by signatories in the monitoring reports submitted as of September 2015.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

How to develop a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) in the Eastern Partnership and Central Asian cities

Since 2010 the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative has come to involve 11 Eastern Partnership and Central Asian countries in the implementation of local sustainable energy policies. The specific situation which characterises these countries compels to adapt the methodology for the preparation of the Sustainable Energy Action Plans which has been developed to address the European context and which has been widely described in the Guidebook "How to develop a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP)". The present outline aims to complement the above mentioned Guidebook by presenting the main adaptations to the methodology as they are proposed for Eastern Partnership and Central Asian cities. It does this by presenting first an overview of the key principles these signatories should keep in mind when preparing a SEAP, and secondly by indicating the main critical aspects of the methodological adaptation. In this framework Eastern Partnership and Central Asian signatories are given the possibility to commit to an emission reduction target by 2020 based on their projections of emissions for this year following a Business-As-Usual scenario.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

The Covenant of Mayors in Figures and Performance Indicators: 6-Year Assessment

The main purpose of this scientific report is to provide an assessment of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) Initiative 6 years after it has been initiated by the European Commission. By implementing the CoM Initiative, the European Commission has given visibility to the role of local authorities and their relevant contribution to EU2020 Climate and Energy targets. This is the second assessment report in a series of CoM assessment reports published by JRC. As of mid-May 2014 5,296 local authorities signed the Covenant of Mayors (CoM), for a total of ca. 160 million inhabitants in the EU-28, and ca. 186 million inhabitants in the whole initiative. Based on the data collected from Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) submitted by CoM Signatories as of mid-May 2014, a statistical methodology has been developed to select a CoM data set for evaluating the real impact of the CoM initiative. The report provides main statistics of the data set in terms of GHG emission and estimated reductions, Final energy consumptions and estimated energy savings and clean energy production in the local authorities. Ultimately, the report aims to emphasize the feature of SEAPs as a flexible common platform for achieving EU Climate and Energy targets with a bottom-up approach.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

Covenant of Mayors in Figures: 8-year Assessment

The European Commission’s initiative Covenant of Mayors (CoM), one of the world’s largest urban climate and energy initiatives, involving more than seven thousand local and regional authorities, proves that climate change has moved to the forefront of urban priorities. Its integrated approach is in line with a number of EU priorities not only concerning mitigation and adaptation but also in terms of embracing a robust transparency framework for the implementation of the Paris agreement. The Covenant of Mayors in figures 8-year assessment report, based on the data collected in the CoM platform as of September 2016, aims at providing an overall picture of the achievement and projections made by the signatories in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and the related energy consumptions. Developing a sustainable energy and climate action plan that requires the establishment of a baseline emission inventory, target setting and the adoption of policy measures is already a tangible achievement for cities. This is the first step towards an effective, transparent system for tracking progress and concrete results. Ultimately, the report emphasis that strong urban energy policies and increased involvement of citizens is of vital importance in the potential of urban mitigation of global climate change.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

The Covenant of Mayors: In-depth Analysis of Sustainable Energy Action Plans

As part of the European Commission’s Covenant of Mayors Initiative, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has carried out an in-depth analysis of selected sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs). Based on a sample of 25 cities from different EU Member States, the study seeks to identify and extract the common and most important characteristics of how local authorities across Europe are developing and implementing this policy. The study examined the strategies used by different local authorities in their SEAPs, with specific analysis of methodology, policies, governance, external support and regional and national characteristics. This gives us a picture of the strengths and weaknesses of different cities in their attempts to reduce their total GHG emissions by 2020. The study focuses on two types of Covenant signatory: -cities already involved in climate, air quality, sustainability and energy plans who adapted their plans to the Covenant requirements -cities for which the Covenant was the point of departure for developing strategies to decrease their total emissions. Just as important are the conclusions drawn by the study, which cover areas such as: -best practices -circumstances favouring the adoption and implementation of local sustainable energy policies -small municipalities’ need for external support in developing their SEAP -the result of signatories joining forces to develop their SEAPs -the role of the covenant territorial coordinators (CTC)within the initiative.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc