In this episode of the EU Projects Zone Podcast, Areti Ntaradimou talks to Carsten Rothballer about the ways in which Act!onHeat will raise awareness on heating and cooling on a pan-European level.

Carsten Rothballer is the Coordinator within ICLEI Europe of project Act!onHeat. In this podcast episode, he explains the objectives and innovations of this Horizon 2020-funded project.

The Act!onHeat project's aim is to "accelerate strategic heating and cooling planning within municipalities" says Carsten.

And to accomplish that, he adds, "it provides the framework methods in a structured way for municipalities to lead their decision making towards decarbonizing".

Heating and cooling is responsible for roughly half of Europe’s energy and depends mainly on fossil fuels. The project aims to raise awareness of that fact, as well as propose alternatives.

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According to Carsten and Act!onHeat they can be replaced by Renewable Energy Sources (RES).

"There are many alternatives to fossil fuels," says Carsten. He uses the example of district heating.

"District heating is a wonderful connector of different sources," he says, adding that all we need to do is "take a local inventory of what is available within the city boundary and even beyond, within the region".

Listen to the discussion and find out why Carsten believes that it will be a political and not a technological failure if we do not achieve our 2050 energy goals.