Annual Report 2023 of the ‘Climate-neutral city’ mission

Austria has set itself an ambitious target: The country is to become climate-neutral by 2040. And there are positive signs that the path it has chosen is the right one: in 2023, greenhouse gas emissions fell for the second year in a row. With its innovative strength, the Climate-Neutral City mission aims to drive this trend forward. The Climate-Neutral City Mission is the Austrian implementation of the '100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030' mission initiated by the European Commission.

In 2023, ten Austrian cities - Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, Villach, St. Pölten, Dornbirn and Wiener Neustadt - signed agreements with the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK). The signatories pledged to look for innovative solutions and to work even harder together to make urban climate-neutrality a reality. Shortly afterwards, twelve smaller cities - Steyr, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Baden, Kapfenberg, Tulln an der Donau, Bruck an der Mur, Feldbach, Gratwein-Straßengel, Vöcklabruck, St. Veit an der Glan and St. Johann in Tirol - began to draw up climate neutrality roadmaps similar to those previously drawn up by the larger cities.

Cities play a key role in the fight against climate change. In the 22 Austrian cities that took part in the Climate-Neutral City Mission in 2023, together around 32 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions are released (this value is an approximation based on energiemosaik.at.). They are the economic engines of the country and locations for research and innovation. Above all, however, Austria's cities are places worth living in for the people who live there. The Climate-Neutral City Mission was launched to ensure that this remains the case in the future and that the cities continue to succeed in the international competition between locations. It supports the participating cities on their independent paths to climate-neutrality. This annual report describes the first phase of this mission.