The draft document, approved in July by the municipal executive, includes 38 measures that aim to act on climate action and, consequently, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport, stationary energy, waste and wastewater, and agriculture, forestry and other land uses. 

Vila Nova de Famalicão's Municipal Climate Action Plan is available for public consultation and the collection of suggestions at the Municipal Environmental Services Service Desk, during normal office hours, and on the municipality's official website, at here. 

Interested parties can also send their suggestions to the City Council via email (camaramunicipal@famalicao.pt) by filling in the appropriate form, available here (General - Public Participation).

Municipal Climate Action Plan presents 38 measures

Of the proposals presented in the Municipal Climate Action Plan, 27 are mitigation measures, eight are adaptation measures and three are cross-cutting (they are mitigation and adaptation measures or cover several sectors). The municipality intends to implement half of the measures by 2050, with the rest having a lower deadline for implementation. 

Associated with stationary energy, the municipality not only wants to continue changing street lighting to more efficient (LED) bulbs, but also wants to change the lighting systems in public buildings to bulbs of the same type. The municipality also wants to set up co-financing programmes to support the population and small and medium-sized businesses in purchasing heat pumps and solar thermal panels for water heating and air conditioning, and to deliver these heat pumps to public buildings. 

With regard to transport, the ambition is, for example, to replace the entire municipal fleet with 100 per cent electric vehicles in the case of light vehicles, and with alternative fuels (hydrogen, biofuels) in the case of heavy vehicles. Another proposal involves discrimination in car parking, which could be free for electric vehicles. In turn, the revenue from parking combustion vehicles could be redirected to projects that promote sustainable mobility in the municipality, such as the construction of cycle paths and the purchase of bicycles. The municipality also wants to create an inter-municipal shared mobility network and invest in the efficiency of the clickable network. 

In terms of waste and wastewater, the municipality wants to extend the programme of offering and implementing home and community composters to residents, increase the network of selective collection of municipal bio-waste, as well as raise awareness among the population about the importance of waste production by adopting more sustainable practices. 

Among the measures associated with agriculture, forestry and other land uses, we highlight the creation of a Support and Training Office for Farmers, the development of a food re-education strategy, the promotion of awareness campaigns on the importance of protecting the forest from fires, and the purchase of local and seasonal products, among other proposals. 

In addition to these mitigation measures (27), which are organised according to the sources of greenhouse gases - transport (9 measures), stationary energy (10), waste and wastewater (3), and agriculture, forestry and other land uses (5), and their type of intervention - regulation (6), technological (11) and awareness-raising (10), there are 8 adaptation measures: 3 green measures and 5 non-structural. While mitigation actions aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase their sinks (natural systems that absorb more carbon than they emit), adaptation actions intend to reduce the vulnerability of society and the territory to the effects of climate change.

Adaptation proposals can come to life with the continued reinforcement of tree planting, the adaptation of public green spaces to climate change, the rehabilitation and renaturalisation of all the main watercourses in the municipality and the development of a Municipal Flood Contingency Plan, among other actions.

Alongside these measures, Vila Nova de Famalicão's Municipal Climate Action Plan is made up of three more crosscutting proposals, which include a regulatory measure, an awareness-raising measure and an awareness/technological measure. In particular, the municipality intends, for example, to create an environmental education strategy that integrates various awareness-raising projects with schools, residents and companies in the municipality, to expand the goals of the ‘25,000 trees by 2025’ project to 100,000 trees by 2050, and to study the valorisation of agricultural and forestry waste through biodigesters.