Local governance plays an important role in shaping the kinds of transitions essential to combatting climate change. Given this reality, local governments and stakeholders have pointed out that they require support to hire the staff necessary to make sure these transitions take flight. ICLEI Europe, alongside EnergyCities, ECODES, Climate Alliance, FEDARENE and others, has joined an EU-wide campaign calling for additional support to local governments in recruiting the expert staff needed to implement national and EU decarbonisation targets locally.

“The accelerated local energy transition requires local governments to recruit a rising number of specialised local experts. Local governments need to be enabled to set up corresponding training and long-term engagement opportunities to meet those demands,” explains ICLEI Europe President and Mayor of Freiburg, Martin Horn.

This call is articulated in a Joint Manifesto that responds to the gap between local transition requirements and staff resources identified in an Energy Cities study on Human capacity in local governments.

Study findings show that just decarbonising local building stocks alone would require municipalities and related local bodies across Europe to create an additional 214,000 full-time positions per year until 2030. This equates to a total of 16 billion EUR of additional related costs per year for local governments and an increase in local employee-related expenditures in the energy and building sector of around 50%.

These findings support partners' recommendations for staff recruitment in EU municipalities and local governance. The Manifesto calls on national governments and the European Commission to:

• Finance the recruitment of the municipal and local public body staff needed through direct financing of long-term job positions in municipalities and related climate and energy public bodies.
• Make local public jobs more appealing and support pooling of expertise by asking Member States to design proper human resources strategies to improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of local public jobs.
• Provide training and reallocation programmes to upskill municipal and related local public body staff by adapting National training programmes.
• Provide a framework enabling local governments to develop their own green budgets, investments, and workforce, by adapting national and EU budgetary rules.

For more information about the Manifesto, its partners and propositions click here. Visit localstaff4climate.eu to sign the Manifesto and support your local municipalities in meeting decarbonisation goals.