Covenant of Mayors committed to local sustainable energy: the Italian case

Paris agreement fixes worldwide targets on temperature increase below 2 °C in XXI century and presently 176 countries ratified this framework. With the 20-20-20 package, European Commission fixes three targets (i) reduction of European greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, (ii) 20% of EU energy consumption to come from renewable resources by 2020 and (iii) 20% reduction in primary energy use compared with projected levels, by improving energy efficiency. To achieve this global targets, Covenant of Mayor was launched in 2008 as a voluntary initiative for local administrations that decide to adopt a plan of interventions concerning greenhouse gas mitigations achieving and exceeding the EU climate and energy targets. We analyse in the present paper the global results of the initiative during its first decade of activity, focusing on the Italian case at national level, since its presently the leading country in terms of population involved.