“If you ever doubt for one second that we as human beings have the capacity to muster the sufficient political will to act, please remember,” former US Vice President Al Gore told the conference, “political will is itself a renewable resource.”

Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 for their advocacy on tackling climate change, delivered a keynote video message at the opening of the EU Cities Mission conference in Vilnius in May where he congratulated the EU Cities Mission and Mission City leaders on their own climate actions and their support from ICLEI and NetZeroCities.

The conference - the largest yet for the Mission, welcoming over 800 guests to the Lithuanian capital - was a chance for city representatives, practitioners, climate organisations, city networks, experts from academia and finance, and European political bodies to come together to make valuable exchanges and new connections, which they did emphatically.

Across three packed days and over 80 hours of discussions across 50-plus sessions, plenaries and other valuable exchanges, a huge amount of knowledge and insight was shared and recorded and will soon be published on the NetZeroCities portal, an expanding library of resources on urban sustainability.

There were many vital sessions for cities, including on Ukraine, finance, and energy, and many of these were led by ICLEI colleagues. A session with Baltic cities included Vilnius’ and Tallinn’s deputy mayors, and Riga and Liepaja gave critical insight on their work toward energy independence. Another covered how using Climate City Contracts to scale up the Mission will be essential to leverage the lessons of advanced cities.

The conference was jointly organised by partners from NetZeroCities, with ICLEI as the lead partner, the City of Vilnius and the European Commission.

Jennifer McIntosh, the team leader for ICLEI’s Climate-Neutral Cities Task Group, said: “Leading European cities are not speeding their own way to climate neutrality, they are quickening the pace of others with collaboration and exchange through the EU Cities Mission.

“This underlines the value of our Mission conferences and the work done to deliver this flagship event in Vilnius. Cities not only have amazing access to expertise, but the ability to share their own insight and gain it from other cities is unique at this scale to the Mission. I was delighted then that several of our ICLEI-led sessions not only had cities as valued guests but as featured speakers."

ICLEI Europe Regional Director Wolgang Teubner said: “The success of this conference is a testament to the commitment of the many cities that came to Vilnius to share their knowledge and to seek it out. This is a European success story where cities are making connections between their work across the EU and beyond to deliver climate action locally.

“I must also acknowledge that part of the success of the week lies too with the efforts of our ICLEI Europe colleagues who led the organisation of this major event alongside NetZeroCities partners, the City of Vilnius, and the European Commission. Their tireless work behind the scenes allowed cities to be centre stage at all times and I congratulate them on this great achievement.”

In Vilnius, cities didn’t just share progress - they sparked new momentum, proving that climate neutrality is not a distant goal, but a collective journey already well underway.