Enabling and accelerating the goals of clean, secure, and affordable energy in the ongoing transition toward a zero-carbon global energy sector requires massive mobilization of resources to lower greenhouse gas emissions and increase resource efficiency of energy and material systems. Ordinary citizens are coming together through collective initiatives to confront these challenges and play an active role in the low carbon transition. Throughout Europe, over 2 million people are members in over 10,500 citizen-led energy initiatives. Together, they have created nearly 23,000 projects in different aspects of the energy transition and are jump-starting Europe's renewable energy growth. However, these contributions are often overlooked, and statistical accounting is absent, despite their impact on increased energy self-sufficiency, local sustainable development, greater citizen engagement, diversification of activities, ramping up of renewable energies, social innovation, and acceptance of transition measures.

This Townhall Meeting features a screening of the 20-minute animated film "Power To & By the People" which presents results from the EU Horizon 2020 COMETS project (Collective Action Models for the Energy Transition and Social Innovation). The film draws on our groundbreaking dataset — the first systematic data collection to capture the nature and scope of collective citizen-led action in the energy transition for each country in Europe. The data compiled can be used to support the construction of likely trajectories for citizen engagement and help with monitoring, goal and policy setting, and impact evaluation of these initiatives, which is increasingly needed to support evidence-based policy action in this field.

Synopsis: The film presents strong evidence for the historical, emerging, and actual importance of citizen-led collective action to the European energy transition. The documentary begins with background on energy services and cooperatives, then highlights 10 solutions by citizen action initiatives across Europe addressing various current issues of energy security, sustainability, and the affordable provision of energy services. Lastly, a "Facts & Figures" segment quantifies the aggregate contributions of citizen-led energy initiatives and provides cross-country insights into how collective action shapes the sustainable energy future.

Agenda:
• Welcome
• COMETS project overview, Prof. Dr. Valeria Jana Schwanitz
• FAIRification of the database, Prof. Dr. August Wierling
• Screening of the film "Power To & By the People"
• Q&A / discussion