ICOS has recently submitted an EU H2020 project proposal for developing greenhouse gas measurements in cities. The project is called PAUL, “Pilot Application in Urban Landscapes towards integrated city observatories for greenhouse gases”. It supports the European Green Deal, as cities are important emission hotspots and therefore play a significant role in emission reduction efforts.
The four-year PAUL project aims to increase our understanding of specific needs in greenhouse gas emission assessment in urban environment. It compares state-of-the-art and new innovative approaches and implements an integrated concept for a city observatory. This way it can provide unique data sets that feed diverse models, scientific studies and that will function as a basis of services towards the city administrations. The design of services will be done using a co-design approach, in which city administrators and scientists from natural, social and governmental sciences work together.
Provided the proposal is successful, the measurement observatories will be built in three cities: Munich, Paris, and Zürich. The project aims at leveraging the particular strengths and features of each of the three cities, striving to compare observations and techniques in different locations. Additionally, a City Network will be established, with more than 10 cities participating. This will increase the impact of the project and allow for upscaling the results from the pilot cities. The project will have close to 30 participating organisations, and it will cooperate with other relevant EU Green Deal projects.
H2020 call ‘European Research Infrastructures capacities and services to address European Green Deal challenges’ (ID: LC-GD-9-1-2020, part (b) Enhancing European research infrastructures for greenhouse gases observation in and around cities).