The City Hall of Vila Nova de Famalicão will create a working team to monitor the climate policy, as well as sectoral policies with impact in the municipal goals regarding decarbonisation and climate change, called Municipal Climate Change Adaptation Team. The coordination of the team will be in charge of the Alderman of Environment, Hélder Pereira, and follows the development of the Municipal Strategy of Adaptation to Climate Change.
Climate change is the phenomenon that underpins the creation of this team, as it is a universal challenge that imposes the need to promote a consistent and determined response to climate change, in order to place the City Hall of Famalicão at the forefront, at national level, regarding the effective management of these challenges that affect the lives of citizens.
It should be recalled that, in 2017, the City Hall made a commitment to comply with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations (UN), having obtained, in the Municipal Sustainability Index of the Centre for Studies and Opinion Polling (CESAOP) of the Catholic University, a global index of 69.5%, in the year 2021, exceeding the national average which stands at 65.7%. This index evaluates the municipal performance in the achievement of the 17 SDGs proposed by the UN, one of the objectives covered being related to Climate Action (no. 13).
Within the scope of climate action, it is worth highlighting the municipal project "Life - Natural Adapt 4 Rural Areas", which advanced into the field this year, which aims at minimizing climate change in the territory. Through this project, ecosystem-based solutions are being implemented, namely, the replication and use of the "services" that nature provides naturally, as well as the recovery of natural habitats that have the ability to retain water and infiltrate it into the groundwater, thus avoiding the effect of floods upstream and increasing the amount of water in the groundwater for use during the summer, in periods of drought, thus achieving a better environmental and climate performance by reducing waste, greater resilience to flooding, improving the quality of wastewater for economic and human reuse.
It should be noted that the creation of the Municipal Climate Change Adaptation Team follows the Law 98/2021, of December 2021, which requires municipalities to prepare a Municipal Climate Action Plan within two years from its entry into force, arising the need to allocate qualified human resources for the preparation of this manifesto, which will serve as a guide to municipal action in the environmental field.