The Programme for Climate Action and Sustainability Sustentável 2030 will allow Portugal to invest more than 3.1 billion euros of European funding (Cohesion Fund) to meet the challenges of the energy and climate transition and fulfil the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
The event to present the programme took place on 27 November at the Porto Leixões Cruise Terminal and was attended by Mariana Vieira da Silva, Minister of the Presidency and Duarte Cordeiro, Minister of Environment and Climate Action.
Sustainability and climate transition and adaptation, sustainable urban mobility and rail transport networks and port infrastructures are the programme’s main priorities.
At national level, and in order to respond to the challenges arising from sustainability and the climate transition, with a particular focus on decarbonisation, Sustentável 2030 mobilises funding options that make it possible to leverage relevant investments for the energy and climate transition.
In particular investment in the field of transport namely sustainable urban mobility, railways and the maritime-port sector, but also with the aim of responding to the important challenges of transition and adaptation to climate change and risk prevention and disaster resilience and the transition to a circular economy.
As one of the 12 programmes created for the operationalisation of Portugal 2030, which implements the programming cycle of European funds for the 2021-2027 period in Portugal, Sustentável 2030 fits in with two of the European Union’s strategic and policy objectives:
- The ‘OP 2 – A greener Europe’, which implements the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement;
- The ‘OP3 – A more connected Europe’, which includes fundamental investments aimed at developing a sustainable Trans-European Transport Network.
The Programme’s strategy of linking strategic objectives also fits in with the European Green Deal – which places sustainability at the heart of action aimed at creating a modern, competitive and resource-efficient economy.
“Portugal faces demanding challenges in terms of adapting to climate change and the energy transition. The interventions that will be possible to finance through Sustentável 2030 are vital to meeting these challenges, as well as to fulfil the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050,” said Helena Azevedo, president of the Steering Committee of Sustentável 2030.
At the moment, according to Helena Azevedo, 15 calls are open under the programme with a budget of 530 million euros, and six applications have already been submitted. “We’re already in the implementation phase,” she said.
Mariana Vieira da Silva, Minister of the Presidency, said: “These objectives require an effort to transform the way we produce, move around and consume, and public policies are vital to this and benefit from the impact of European funds. Portugal has a history of using European funds to solve structural problems”.
As Portugal is among the European countries most affected by climate change, with effects that tend to intensify, Sustentável 2030 estimates funding of 276 million euros to promoting adaptation to climate change, preventing disaster risks and strengthening resilience.
In the mainland, the aim is to reduce the risk of erosion by 20% of the kilometres of coastline in an erosion situation, from the current 174 km (2021) to 139 km in 2029. In the Autonomous Region of Madeira, interventions to protect the coastline and mitigate the risk of erosion will cover an area of around 70 km by the end of 2029.
Another of the Sustentável 2030 objectives is the the transition to a circular and resource-efficient economywith funding totalling 20 million euros to implement measures that contribute to promoting the promoting the prevention, recovery and recycling of waste and optimising the use of resources,as well as reducing the potential impacts of its production..
To this end, awareness-raising and information campaigns aimed at citizens will be carried out to help improve their practices, with more than 9 million people expected to be involved by 2029.
With the aim of promoting sustainable multimodal urban mobilityas part of the transition to a net-zero carbon economy, Sustentável 2030 will fund investments totalling more than 1.312 billion euros in this transition to safe, accessible, inclusive, intelligent, resilient and zero-emission urban mobility.
Another of the major funding areas of Sustentável 2030, concerns developing a climate-resilient, intelligent, safe, sustainable and intermodal Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
For a total of 1.395 billion euros, the programme aims to fund a series of investments up to 2029 aimed at completing and modernising the rail transport infrastructures belonging to the trans-European network, with a length of 141 km and an expected impact on an increase of around 130 million passenger km/year and 321 million tonnes of goods km/year.
Source: CE/Lusa/Sustentável2030